Picture yourself in a tranquil, forested clearing. You immediately feel more calm and relaxed, right? Well the client of Dancing House by Craig Tan Architects wanted that feeling at home. The result is a home arranged around three courtyards, with views to the garden and with timber and soft grey tones to represent the colours and textures of those relaxed natural clearings...
Dancing House is a new open-plan extension to an existing Californian Bungalow. The openness and connection to the three courtyards provides a delightful counterpoint to the cellular nature of the original home. Each courtyard is designed for a different purpose, named Sun Terrace, Bridge and Forest Courtyard. It's easy to imagine how inviting these spaces will feel once fully landscaped and lush with vegetation. The courtyards are also a great strategy to maximise sunlight and cross-ventilation.
Externally the walls are clad in a combination of vertical painted timber and COLORBOND® steel in warm mid-grey, Wallaby®. These material choices echo the forest concept and their verticality mimics the trunks of trees.
"The sun terrace will have a single feature tree which will create dappled light and also provide a degree of screening from the street. In contrast, the South facing bridge courtyard will encourage a fernery style of planting, whilst the forest courtyard is designed to be densely treed to the boundary to create a sense of ambiguous visual depth." - Craig Tan
Inside, an undulating grey-stained plywood ceiling acts as a canopy, timber floors and splashes of green tones enhance the sense of an intimate forest clearing, bringing texture and natural warmth to the home.
The Bridge delicately connects the new series of spaces to the original home. The home was designed for a disabled client, so ramps create gentle entrances to the addition, enhancing the feeling of being in a forest.
"By focusing on experience over form in the additions, the house becomes an elegant and complementary interplay between the cellular existing house, and the dynamic experiential courtyards of the new addition – a dancing house." - Craig Tan