You have seen the sketch. What does it look like on site?
You have reached the point where a straight-walled box no longer feels like enough. The kids have moved out, or you are planning the home you want to stay in for the next twenty years, and you have started wondering about something more considered. A curve. A skylight that does real work. A room that is shaped around how you live rather than around a rectangle.
Then the practical questions arrive. Can that actually be built? What does it look like halfway through? And what does it do to the budget?
These photos are from a home I designed that is still under construction. I am sharing them unfinished on purpose. A build site is where a design gets tested, and it is the most honest place to answer those questions.
Sculptural forms, connecting with the landscape
The house sits on a slope, and the design works with the fall of the land rather than against it. In the photos you can still see scaffolding, bare ground and stone being set into the hillside, so the landscaping has not caught up yet. What is already clear is the way the building steps and curves down the block, and the way the glazing is turned toward the outlook.
If you are weighing a sloping or awkward site, this is the part worth noticing. A steep block is often seen as a problem to fix. Handled well, it is the reason the house ends up looking like it belongs there.
Sculptural concrete
At the entry, a single column flares into a sweeping, curved canopy. It is the most obvious example of a form that looks effortless in a finished photo and is anything but effortless to build. Every curve has to be set out, formed and finished by someone, and that someone needs clear drawings and a builder who is comfortable with the work.
I would rather you hear that from me before drawings start than discover it from a price afterwards. I come back to this at the end.
A sequence of sculpted interiors
Inside, a timber-lined stair rises toward a skylight, and a long hallway curves into a vaulted ceiling. The idea is a sequence rather than a collection of rooms: you move from compressed spaces into open ones, and each turn reveals something. Floors and finishes are still being protected in these photos, so you are seeing the house before the final layer goes on.
Play of light
Light is the other material in this house. A round skylight sits in a sculpted timber ceiling, with a band of high windows below it, so the daylight changes the room through the day. If this is what you are after, the thinking starts with the plan, not the lighting: I wrote about how natural light should shape your floor plan if you want the practical version.
A round wine room, inspired by the Pantheon
The wine room is circular, with a single round opening at the top and an edge of warm light around the dome. The idea came from the Pantheon in Rome. The same round opening appears in the skylight set into the timber ceiling, which is deliberate: a small number of ideas, repeated with care, make a house feel calm rather than busy.
What this means for your own project
This is one house, and it sits at the ambitious end of what I do. Your home may be quieter, and that is a perfectly good outcome. I would rather design something considered that fits how you live than something that simply looks dramatic.
What carries across to any project is the order of the questions:
1. Start with how you live now, and how you want to live next. The form follows from that. I explain how the first conversation works in what to expect and what to bring to your first meeting with an architect.
2. Find out what the shape will cost before you pay for drawings. Curves, large openings and custom joinery are priced differently to straight walls and standard windows. What drives the cost of a custom home sets out which decisions move the number and which you can control.
3. Check whether the site wants an extension or a move. If you are not sure, the renovate or move calculatorcompares the two, including stamp duty.
I work as a solo practice with a network of engineers, builders and trades, so you deal with me from the first idea to the last detail. You can see the services I offer and more of the portfolio on the website.
Know the number before you draw
The step that removes the unknown is the Feasibility Study. We spend three sessions working out what the site allows, what you actually need and what it is likely to cost, so you can decide with real information. What happens in a Feasibility Study walks through each meeting.
If you are planning a home and want to talk it through, book a Feasibility Study.