A renovated Cascade House, originally an early 1900s timber cottage sitting on one of Paddington’s hilly streets, has received the ‘House Alteration and Addition under 200 sqm’ award at the Houses Awards 2022.
Read: New Childcare Centre Planned at Popular Paddington Site
Designed by architect John Ellway, Cascade House is a bright family home which was extended to include open living spaces.
Owners Jacqueline and Oscar requested from their builders a grassy space to picnic under a tree and the sky. They also wanted to have some space where kids can play independently, but just in sight.
Two of the challenges encountered in designing the house was managing the connection to the ground on a sloping site and providing protection from afternoon sun.
A four-metre level change across the site breaks up the entry sequence into a series of split levels whilst screened doors lead the way into the garden, creating an uninterrupted connection to a grassy courtyard.
“Key to unlocking the diagram of the project was managing the western afternoon sun, but not losing the outlook. With the site sloping away, there was an opportunity to simply extend the pitch of the verandah roof over the cascading split levels below,” Ellway said.
The designer highlighted the importance of working with a talented garden designer, in being able to create a landscape that reinforces this separation. It was designed by Tom Collins, a landscape designer who’s also a graduate of Architecture.
The entire site measures 402 sqm and the additions made, which include the pool and the courtyard, measured approximately 65 sqm of the space.
The new centre of the house is the lounge, made with built-in seating to reduce building footprint. Facing the lounge is the kitchen, which features a window to the south overlooking the pool.
For this design, Mr Ellway came up with the new extension that sits below eye level, editing out the foreground, and allowing an uninterrupted outlook to the sunset, valley, and hills.
This isn’t the first time that Mr Ellway has been recognised for his projects in Paddington. His ‘Three House,’ located in a flood-prone site at Norwood Terrace was previously recognised as the Australian Home of the Year in 2021.