Midcentury single family house redesigned in 2018 by Downie North Architects, located in Sydney, Australia.

Description by Downie North Architects
A discreet, robust and light-filled renovation of an existing 1950s bungalow for an active family of five, Skylit House is a simple and deft alteration to a mid-century suburban bungalow in the bushy lower north shore suburb of Castlecrag.
Developer driven suburban sprawl throughout Australia has generally given rise to houses that have little or no relationship to their site and are a product of market driven forces, built to sell, objects that have landed indifferently on terrain. The result is a housing stock that is insular and claustrophobic, referring only to their own internal mechanisms, ignorant of family relationships. Landscape, natural light, cross ventilation and site specific conditions are secondary, arbitrary or irrelevant. Skylit House offers a strategy to remedy this standard housing stock by simple gestures of internal reconfiguration without requiring enormous expense or increased building fabric. By a process of removing, rather than adding, Skylit House brings natural daylight deep inside shared living spaces that open out to the surrounding landscape. Conceptually it is simply a ‘coming together’ space- both of people and site. The program is open and robust, offering space for families to share, enjoy a good meal and discuss the day.
Having previously lived in a large family hom...