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Top Notch

This city house is a series of spatial discoveries.  From the street, it appears to be a single-level home.  Here it has a balanced and symmetrical composition, with a pair of notches in a hipped roofline revealing the city beyond.

The house is in fact three stories, one at street level, one below, and one tucked into the roof.

The main living area is a predominantly horizontal space featuring a storey-deep skylight.  This forms an uplifting vertical volume – one of the two ‘notches’ apparent from the street. The room is fully glazed front and back, strongly connecting it to both the front garden and the city view opposite.

From the rear garden all levels of the home are apparent; it reveals itself as a staggered series of rooms, all opening onto sheltered outdoor spaces, planned within a compact footprint.