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Zulaikha Laurence Residence

Name Zulaikha Laurence Residence
Client Brian Zulaikha, Janet Laurence
Country Wangal
Location Balmain, NSW
Year 2006

This home for an architect and an artist was developed around a robust concrete former gunpowder store of 1918. The transformation creates a house that faces the ever-changing view and southerly weather conditions of this former industrial part of Sydney Harbour.

This land was home to the Birrabirragal people who lived in the eastern Balmain for 10,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans. The rock outcrops and evidence of shellfish can still be seen along the coastal edge, natural remnants of this time.

The exposure of the small 120sqm site to southerly coastal weather conditions posed a challenge to this design.

To maximise the view of the harbour activity, the windows and doors slide completely out of sight.

Inside, various timbers are used to express the structure, which can then be perceived from outside as the house’s skeleton.

The faces of the building are designed to connect the house closely to the environment, with the interior and exterior detail being ‘equal’, to accentuate this connectivity.

Team

Brian Zulaikha, Drew Heath, Elizabeth Metcalfe, Ross Langdon.

Awards

2007 RAIA National Award for Residential Architecture – Houses.
2007 RAIA NSW Residential Alterations and Additions Award.

Photographer

Michael Nicholson.

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Northern Expressway

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National Centre of Indigenous Excellence