Some projects begin with a form, or a program, or specific technical requirements. This project began with a colour. YELLOW.Yellow is fun, yellow is warm, yellow is friendly. These are the characteristics of the clients – a couple with two children who seem to be perpetually smiling. When we design we often try to tone the project to our client’s personality as well as their pragmatic needs and budget. In this case, their personalities always came back to these characteristics – fun, warm, friendly. Their sunny disposition adventurous spirit and love of bold colour was the basis for the design.

The family presented a common problem to the designers. The inner city bungalow that they owned was disconnected from the landscape, was poorly laid out and lacked space for their growing family. Most glaringly, the original bungalow had suffered an ill-conceived faux bungalow addition in the 1980’s. The brief was to reconfigure the existing house, remove the 1980’s homage to bungalow detailing and expand the house with a contemporary addition which captured the western light in a larger living space.