The Spaces Between

A glimpse of a garden through a doorway. A change in light as you move down a hallway. A low ceiling that gives way to a taller room. One of the things we’ve always found fascinating about architecture is how a space can make you feel before you’ve even arrived.

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The Art of Transition

On a recent visit to Bali, we noticed how quickly the gardens hid the place we’d just left. A path would turn, planting would close in behind us and, for a moment, there was only the garden. Then the next space came into view, surrounded by green. From each destination, the planting was still all around us. You could sit for a while and have very little sense of the paths and buildings just beyond it. Each arrival felt like a discovery.

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At home, the same idea can begin at the front door. Coming in from the street, there’s a pleasure in having a moment to put down your keys and take in where you are. An entry that frames a glimpse of a courtyard gives you something to move towards. A hallway with a lower ceiling can make the living room feel more generous when you step into it. And an opening between the kitchen and dining room can be placed so that whoever’s cooking can stay in the conversation.

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Seeing an Existing Home Differently

In a renovation, we often start by looking at how people already move through the house. Where do you see the garden for the first time? Where do you go for a quiet moment when everyone’s in the kitchen? The answers can change where we put a doorway or what we do with a corridor that’s only ever been used to get somewhere else.

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Sometimes moving a doorway is enough to give an entry a view of the garden. A hallway might become a place for art, with daylight at the end drawing you through. Both changes can make familiar rooms feel different without adding a square metre.

After twenty-five years of designing homes, we still enjoy finding those possibilities in a floor plan. They’re easy to miss when you look at one room at a time. Walk through the house, and you begin to see the life that happens between them.

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Design Life Better

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