Otiqqa House is a home set in the hillside of an affluent area owned by a young couple about to start a family.The brief was to accommodate a place that will provide a calm, simple lifestyle as the couple look to expand their family and have children.
Initial observations of the former conventional terrace house of 24 ft by 90 ft were that it had a long driveway and typically resulted in very dark interiors and living spaces.A design strategy on the idea of ‘extensions’ was devised, questioning its definition that morphed into an overall scheme of extending the terraced architecture through volume, voids, and openings.The extensions employed were beyond the usual floor space extensions but looking to enlarge spatial experience through horizontal, vertical and viewing continuums.
The house frontage – a bold T-shaped form – is the car porch roof and entrance foyer.Upon entering from a side entrance, a central cloister through the garden courtyard leads you into the home.One begins to sense an extension of the internal to external horizontally but also vertically to the sky.The perforation of the trees through the architecture softens the space and heightens the heavy contrast of linear lines.Extended voluminous garden rooms are naturally created to fulfil the requirements of security and privacy.Here, grille doors that are usually placed immediately adjacent to openings were extended beyond the gardens to simply open up the space so as not to feel caged in.
The ground floor has been transformed into open living spaces that open to secured external spaces as a refuge for fresh air.A central void area was also created to connect all three and a half floors through natural lighting and ventilation.The bedrooms on the first floor also benefit, as an extension of spaces through the windows.This vertical extrusion creates an interesting juxtaposition of the floor platforms, forming a play of levels when you look out from the bedroom windows.
The new loft study sits on a former water tank slab and is accessed through a small spiral stair.This in-between space forms a viewing vista from top-down, connected through the extension of the air well.From here, another flight of stairs leads to the open roof deck with a view of the commanding city skyline all around.Interestingly, a bathtub combined with a platform, with a garden and barbecue area were also put in to suit any rooftop leisure activities – a much loved and used space by the family.
An aerial view of the house also reveals the vertical extensions and perforations made to the house, and a contrast to its surrounding houses, which typically maintains only enclosed spaces.The new home serves as a self-made prophecy that it may not be necessary to change or alter an idea for concepts to be fresh and new.Simple gestures as such modify the space to become light and bright, creating new atmospheres without big strokes of change whilst meeting the brief of the client.Perhaps, all it needed was for its boundaries to be ‘extended’.
The new loft study sits on a former water tank slab and is accessed through a small spiralstair. This in-between space forms a viewing vista from top-down, connected through the extension of the air well.
