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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.