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Do you have two or three key questions you ask every
client when you first meet for that critical brief?
PD Clearly, the budget’s important.
How important is that big central glass opening?
It’s almost as if the house draws the landscape through
this. The key idea was this flexible space created by large
openings of sliding glass walls on either side. Each wall of
tall doors comprises six panes of glass spanning a seven
metre wide opening. There’s a connection between those
openings. They can be opened to provide an exceptionally
deep room that embraces this fantastic setting.
You talk money first up?
I try to, yes, because that sets the parameters for everything.
Out of that, a discussion can be engaged about whether my
services would even be appropriate. I try to understand the
needs and wants of the client. Challenging what you really
need is different from what you actually want and there’s a
journey of investigation in that. It’s about compromise and
with that trying to find the great design.
What are your thoughts on sliding versus bi-fold doors?
We tend to use sliding doors more often than bi-folds. Bifolds suggest complete openness, but in the consideration
of how someone might live, sliding is just easier in dayto-day use. Glazing on the view side is quite tall. There’s
a mirroring of width on the south-eastern wall with an
identical pattern but lower opening height. Despite their
dimensions the units are quite easy to operate.
It’s a quite linear, narrow floor plan.
It’s essentially the same width right along which is a very
specific design response because it’s about creating a
singular form within the landscape. The form starts low,
where the site’s slightly flatter, and then it lifts up, gets
higher as it tries to peak conceptually over the