Lee Residence

Occupying the length of an extruded site, which slopes eight metres down from the western street entry to the rear garden, a long and narrow house is memorable for the subtle changes in the level of it’s extended central axis and for the discreet modulation of disparate components.

The house is very large, but appears to be very small, with an intimate human-scaled ambience: it is barely visible from the street, where low-slung pavilions with horizontal eaves retreat demurely behind walls of honey-coloured granite.

The rectangular rectitude of the plan and the long elevations is relieved by a gently curving roof profile, and by dynamic internal spiral staircases, one of which rises from the entry through a glass-clad atrium.

Remarkable for its rugged use of materials, another stairwell – a coil of rusted steel enclosed by walls made from great chucks of granite – descends through the guest-room block at the rear of the house. As with the entry sequence, the surfaces of the interior spaces are defined by the use of tactile timber and stone.