Gangsta’s paradise: Double Life House

Everyone has a superhero inside them. But even the best superhero needs a place to hang up their cape and recharge. Superman had his Secret Citadel. Batman had Wayne Manor and the Batcave. We can all relate to this – sometimes you just want to go inside, shut the door and leave it all behind for a bit.

So when Russell Beard and Stephanie Lambert engaged Breathe Architecture for the design of their home, they started a conversation with director Jeremy McLeod about creating “a house for two introverts living in a world of extroverts.” The idea of a double life came into being, and the Double Life House was created in an attempt to “keep them sane” and protect their true identities from the outside world.

In Jeremy’s words: “It is their hide-out, their lair, their fortress of solitude.” The hide-out is actually an inner-city terrace in Sydney, one room wide at the front with a small courtyard at the rear. The architects sought to untangle the one hundred or so years of spatial clutter that lurked behind the front door of the existing dwelling to bring this vision to life. As soon as you walk in, it’s as if you’ve entered a phone booth – sound-dampening wall and ceiling linings bring things down aurally, the environment becoming instantly quieter and a bit calmer. In front of you, the library awaits – an articulated black plywood joinery element that provides a pause in the space where you are pivoted around to discover the sunken concrete living area in the old front room. The room is wrapped by a banquette on two sides and the ceiling has been peeled back to reveal the herringbone struts of the original floor structure to the rooms above. An artwork by Sonny Day on a hinged panel neatly conceals an entertainment hub of television screen and sound equipment, creating a changeable focal point for the room where the old hearth used to be. The theme of divulgence continues with the careful hiding of a laundry/store behind a jib door built into the library wall adjacent.

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The top-lit kitchen/dining space opens out to a neat courtyard paved in herringbone brickwork. Artwork: Max Berry.

Image: Katherine Lu

I haven’t got far past the front door yet, but there is a slip of natural light spilling across the library wall, suggesting that there is something beyond. Walking around the wall and past the new stair configuration brings you into the sharply detailed kitchen/dining space that opens out to a neat courtyard paved in herringbone brickwork. Crisp black steel detailing on the doors and in the kitchen sits well with the timber-and-steel table, chairs and stools, and a specially commissioned painting by artist Max Berry. The decision to keep the fridges and storage areas all below the height of the concrete bench eliminates the need for high-level joinery, and pulls the kitchen space into a living theatre of cooking, eating and enjoying the company of family and friends. This space is both refined and relaxed.

In the courtyard there is an intriguingly narrow concrete stair. Wrapped in more black steel filigree, it leads up to another courtyard off the rear upstairs bedroom, this second outdoor space creating an additional spatial option for living in a small footprint. These elements make terrace living more expansive than it might seem on plan, infusing a flexibility into the house that belies its modest footprint.

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A mirrored sliding door in the main bedroom reflects light and gives the impression of a more generous space.

Image: Katherine Lu

Reconfiguring the stair as a switchback allows it to be con-centrated in the middle portion of the house, and allows a small, tall bathroom to be slipped in between it and the main bedroom. The shower enclosure itself is open to the sky. Using the same black steel framing in the shower screen, with a cameo appearance of the courtyard pavers on the floor, makes the shower enclosure feel like the outdoors, which it is when you want it to be. It can be closed off with a retractable glass roof in more inclement times, another piece of spatial manipulation that you find as you move through the house.

Jeremy describes the house as being “mild-mannered from the outside and made of steel within.” The neighbours seem to agree with this – the owners tell an interesting story about sitting down in their sunken living room one night and overhearing some local boys outside the house saying: “Yeah, the guys who bought it spent heaps making the outside look [bad], but inside it looks totally gangsta.” This description of the home presents a similar view to that of the architects, only expressed in a more colourful manner. Either way, the idea of a Double Life House resonates as a refined example of expansive living in a relatively small space.