Skin-Box House by mcmahon and nerlich Architects is a compact but refined home in Melbourne that maximises the sense of space with full height glass sliding doors and quality materials...
Entry into the house is through a small white chamber, living room glimpsed beyond a vertical splice of stair, oak steps, and sheer white walls, as the house steps up the site to the rear. A new first-floor bedroom box cantilevers above an open-plan, slenderly composed living zone. Filtered light casts patterned shadows on the translucent skin of this first floor, never quite dark, glowing ambient light.
The timber ceiling is stunning, defining the horizontal plane overhead. At once serene and warm, defining inside from outside yet helping to understand both as one space. The ceiling turns down to mask the vertical plane at the far end of the room, masquerading as kitchen cupboards and concealing a walk-in pantry. Together with luminous bronze panels, these define the dramatic working space of the kitchen.
The Danpalon box skin glows impossibly bright with ambient light during the day and holds the promise of light at night. Vertical slices through plasterboard walls reveal brighter blocks of light externally. At night, these glow when viewed from the courtyard. Deep reveal metallic box frames, cleverly permitting only distant views through fixed horizontal blades, frame feature windows.
The day view of the Skin-Box House shifts and changes. Bright blue skies reveal silvery skin and birch trees cast shadows that shift and change. Stormy skies cast purple hues and mercurial leaf patterns. The night view of the skin box house reveals the magic of the playful insulated polycarbonate surface, reflecting an urban realm, garden lights, and night sky.
The final dramatic space at the top of the stair is the roof deck. Framed between the horizontal planes of timber cantilevered ceiling and deck floor, the city unfolds, reifying a conceal/reveal narrative for the occupants of the house. The deck is both oasis and retreat, completing the final sequence of the Skin-Box House.