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Old Sydney’s Curtained Glass Loggia House

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In keeping with its elevated past, the high ceilings in this two story extension are dwarfed by two-story steel mesh curtains shielded from the weather by a soaring glass roof.

The double-height curtain of the Glass Loggia House, the winner of two HOUSES Magazine awards for design excellence, provides shade and privacy and a connection to the remodelled garden.

Australian architects Allen Jack+Cottier converted the High Victorian house, as part of a collaboration.

“The loggia and new rooms are designed to exploit the ambiguities between what is inside and what is outside with a dramatic external steel mesh curtain shading the whole north- west facade, which operates to transform the loggia and garden spaces for different family functions.”

In order to show the curtained building to the most interesting effect, garden designer Vladimir Sitta reworked the massing of the hedges and lawns in the sub-tropical Sydney garden.

Because the retrofit was of a historic Sydney house, designer Belinda Koopman remained sensitive to the “bones.”

The judges said: “The approach of both the landscape architect and architect respects the remnants of the past, adding another layer to history. Through a suite of new spaces the house and garden is now more engaged with the people who live there.”

The group transformed the dark rear living spaces and run down garden of a grand two storey High Victorian style residence, creating a useable outdoor area in a way that responds to the grand scale of the existing building, and was appropriate to the conservation area.

The walls, rooms, corridors, platforms, and curtains create a palpable ambiguity about what is inside and outside, old and new.

Internally, the spaces are sensitive to the historic past too, while being modern, open and airy.

The added space is not large. But it perfectly continues the grand tradition of the original.