Perfectly formed

Buried in a gritty inner-city back alley, this reinterpreted terrace is causing a national stir. Part of the redevelopment of a once maligned corner terrace that served as both a commercial and residential property, the futuristic new three-storey residence spectacularly reconsiders Sydney’s traditional architecture.

The house, by SJB architects, has won the Robin Boyd Award for new residential house of the year at the 2023 Australian Institute of Architects awards.

The architects say the Surry Hills house, which sits on a tiny 30sq m block with an internal space of just 69sq m, was reconsidered with an eye to practicality, heritage, place and innovation. The new build nestles beside the restored original corner terrace.

“Decades of architectural detritus had engulfed the site, with a never-ending cascade of additions and lean-tos with the odd weed surviving between the cracks of the concrete path,” SJB says.

“As a butchers, a grocer, a window workshop, a hatter and finally a restaurant, each with the attached rooms above, the original building has had a chequered past. Our intent was to deliver a mixed-use house, breaking up the site to deliver more. Our ambition: a shop, a self-contained flat and a home. Three uses out of one.”

SJB says the new home is “playful and textured”, designed to interact with, and reflect, its surrounds.

“A little like a house from a Jacques Tati film, the façade feels alive with personality. Reclaimed bricks form the canvas, discarded broken ones reflect the historic sandstone base of the surrounding streets and are cut and folded to hide openings and protect views, while the upper bricks shift in scale to frame windows and support planting.

“During the making of the house, artists were commissioned to present a generous edge. The front gate is a cast bronze sculpture by Mika Utzon Popov, and an all-enveloping landscape by Nicholas Harding in the living room is able to be viewed from the street.”

Judges of the AIA awards say the house embodies innovation and style.

“The home shows how hard architecture can work, even on a small footprint,” the judges say. “From the moment it comes into view, the home announces itself as something different. Full of colour, the façade disguises the program within, allowing an element of privacy balanced by a sense of generosity to the public street.”

Photography by Anson Smart