Open Shut House is a modern two-story house located in Kooyong, Australia, designed in 2020 by Wala.

Description
The original period building is one if a pair of semi-detached dwellings, with Art-Deco stylings reflecting its Inter-war era. The building sits on a long and narrow allotment 10m wide and 60m deep with a rearward slope falling 4.2m. The site also backs onto a cricket ground and the Monash Freeway beyond, with northerly winds carrying the sound of traffic to the rear of the property. The owners? family had outgrown the original building and their brief called for an extension that could be future-proofed and cater to the changing needs of individual family members, particularly their 4 young adult children. The design response had to expand on the functional offerings of the old house as well as ensure that any new addition respected the heritage character and scale of the period home, whilst being a clearly distinguishable yet connected entity. The design offers private spaces for the inhabitants, housed in two separate buildings connected by a central atrium. The children?s bedrooms are clustered in the old house, physically separate from their parents? retreat in the new. The narrow hallways of the old house invite exploration, expanding into the double-storey atrium in the physical (and metaphorical) center of the house. Moving deeper into the house, the building responds to the land?s natural fall by cascading a series of tiered...