Maley House

Woolahra, NSW
1995

These alterations and additions to an existing brick and tile house have repositioned the living spaces to the rear of the property to admit much needed sunlight and ventilation and make a direct connection to the garden. The street in which the house is located is extremely steep, with the sites cut and filled top form terraces up the hillside, each successive house being a full storey above the one below. The house is near the bottom of the hill where this terracing peters out with a 3m high sandstone cliff curving diagonally across the rear of the site. The lower section of the site was overgrown and largely inaccessible.

The new extension is built out over this cliff to utilise this lost space while not reducing the size of the backyard, and to screen the house and garden from the street at the rear of the property.

The extension compromises 4 main spaces – a large high ceilinged living/dining room glazed on 3 sides; a small glazed link connects the living room to the main bedroom and forms a small side courtyard; the fourth space is a triangular laundry built under the bedroom following the line of the cliff face. The steel beam and column structure is fully expressed with infill panels of glazing or shadowclad plywood, which also provides the structural bracing. The steel structure is fully bolted with all bolt fixings concealed within the floor and ceiling zones. The extension has two interconnected pavilions of different heights, one fully glazed, the other essentially solid, but united by the steel framework.

Builder: Cumberland Building
Photographer: Ross Honeysett