Cloister House + Laneway / Measured Architecture

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Text description provided by the architects. At its root, the Cloister House is a quiet refuge, a state of seclusion within the city, shared between a grandmother and her grandchildren. A finely crafted spine wall anchors the plan of the house, travelling from the front of the project to the rear. Whimsical kid-friendly elements are present, from an undulating boulder landscape to custom steel slides that run alongside the internal staircases. The hilltop site offers long views of the mountains and ocean which are balanced with shorter internally-focused views to the intimate pocket garden. Local artist, Fei Disbrow, designed a weathering steel wall sculpture + ladder surround that serve as backdrop for the pocket garden allowing filtered light to enter while providing privacy from neighbours. Materials commonly perceived as ‘cold’ were manipulated to achieve a palette of textural warmth inside and out: hand- worked masonry, charred board-form concrete walls, and blackened steel are the textural triptych which provide a sense of harbour.