VISION Issue 42 | Page 33

33 And the proportions between old and the new? I don’t think it was that difficult to build a contemporary building next to a very old church. What was critical was choosing the right materials and using a sympathetic scale. The building should not overwhelm but at the same time shouldn’t recede into the background. The building and exterior walls sit just beneath a datum line on the church and the new upper floor sits below the church eaves. It was purely a question of scale and a compositional challenge. The church itself has been stripped back to its core structural elements. By demolishing the apse and bricked archways, and inserting glazing instead, its formerly dark interior is flooded with light and celebrates the building’s historic beauty and volume. Do you consider your designs especially masculine or feminine in character? Because architecture comes from the person, everything I build is feminine. That’s evident in how I detail materials and corners for instance. The curves here certainly add to the femininity of it. It’s my first project that I have ever done where a curve clearly came out of me being pregnant. I loved to watch how they built it and I think the outcome is so restrained. I think male architects design differently, particularly with the interiors. My focus is on the connection between interior and exterior because we experience the majority of buildings from the inside looking out. It’s an unusual variety of spaces for a family – there’s the courtyard and then you have this amazing ‘backyard’ play space inside the church. I never really thought about how the kids would utilise these spaces. When we first moved in it was so big for them compared to where we were living. They looked for nooks and crannies that they could hide and play in. My little three year old’s favourite game is to play Lego in the cloak-room. My seven year old makes a cubby house under the floating island bench. It’s very interesting to see how the kids relate in different ways to those spaces. The church has been opened up to enjoy its historic beauty and volume and is sensitively connected to the new construct via a glass link. From here, the home unfolds in a series of pared-back living spaces on the ground floor with four bedrooms fanning off a central landing upstairs.