Veranda House / Veranda’s House

Although the Veranda House is located in the city, its site is a quiet and green place populated mostly by older houses punctuated with the occasional modern building, leading to a sort of ‘forgotten’ feeling. Its positioning at the base of a 4.5m tall hill means that the north face of the site suffers from a sense of pressure from a retaining wall. To remedy this, we thought about how the building connected with the people and environment that surrounds it, the importance of distance and presence, and decided an open plan would be be the best resolution. In order to accomplish this feeling of distance, presence and openness, the building was placed on the easy boundary line at an angle to the north side road. A veranda covers the whole north side of the building, not only for access between levels, but also to act as a filter that adjusts the sense of distance between the inside and the outside.

Through the veranda, you have two points of access to the entrance, an external staircase and storage, all accessible from any room, and a neat mesh play area for the kids. Floor grating means that the whole space has continuity from the ground to the roof, and can maintain privacy between levels whilst still maintaining a sense of presence if someone is there. What was once a simple partition between the inside and outside becomes something much more. Expanding outwards, the openings in the veranda act as a portal to the surrounding environment, deepening the connection between the inhabitants and the outside world. The veranda itself becomes an ambiguous space a room in of itself, somewhere between inside and outside, creating distance but also an intimacy with the world outside.

View the complete gallery