Evolving a small modernist project home from 1964 meant balancing its design heritage while adapting it for contemporary family living.
Sydney House, originally a Pettit & Sevitt (P&S) home in the leafy suburbs north of the Harbour Bridge, lacked practical family spaces but sat on a gently sloping sun-soaked site, rich with tall eucalypts, birds and visits from native fauna. Alterations and additions by Sam Marshall, architect of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, pays homage to its modularity, connection to nature, and simple natural materials.
The house is one of the original Pettit & Sevitt Lowline designs by the late acclaimed architect Ken Woolley and it was the Lowline B which won the Royal Australian Institute of Architects design award in 1967 for project homes. A proponent of 'Sydney School' modernist architecture, Woolley's designs drew from Japanese post-and-beam construction and organic design elements among other things.