Inside Outside House

Inside Outside House by Craig Steere Architects treats the Perth site as a room to inhabit, blurring the line between interior and exterior through two stacked, contrasting forms.

A clear glass box sits at ground level beneath a simpler, cantilevered box hovering above. The glazed walls on the ground floor retract into wall cavities so the living and dining spaces can spill across to the boundary walls, dissolving the distinction between inside and out. Slender columns hold the upper box, giving the cantilever its floating quality, while the ceiling formed by its underside sits relatively low to encourage the ground floor spaces to extend outwards.

A perforated screen brick wall preserves privacy to the lower living area, allowing outlook while obscuring views from the street. Service and circulation spaces are tucked discreetly to the back of the plan. Above, the cantilevered box contains the more private bedrooms and family living areas. Generous side setbacks separate it from neighbouring properties; consistent vertical and underside cladding lets the upper form read as a single, simplified mass.

Towards the street, the upper box extrudes outwards to encase a double-volume space over the lower front court. Vertical battens act as screens on either side of this extrusion, filtering and directing the outlook so the view frames the sky and the Norfolk pines of the locality while filtering pedestrian and vehicle traffic. At the back, a secondary courtyard sits alongside a second sitting room, the galley laundry and garage, with the option to open the whole sequence into a single indoor-outdoor space.

Set behind a xeriscape garden that contributes to the streetscape, Inside Outside House is a 400 m2, two-storey home completed in 2017.

Project credits: Craig Steere, Mark de Rozario and Scott Wong (design architects, Craig Steere Architects); Kelvin Brooks Building (builder); MBSE Consultants (engineers); ALTI Lighting (lighting); Intelligent Home (AV); Heather Robbins and Kelwin Wong (photography).