Contemporary Leap House by Tony Owen NDM Architects

The Leap House is located in Sydney’s Dover Heights and has Panoramic views of Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. The house is located on a rock outcrop. The clients brief was for it to Leap out from the rock into the view. As a result the house starts low at the rear and curves up to open out towards the harbour. The layered folds of the metal panel facades create privacy to the street whilst the facades facing the north are completely glass.

We started by responding to the site with a series of movements which folded and twisted the space in order to maximise the changes of level, view opportunities and potential for connectivity to outside spaces at various ground planes. We created a dynamic model capable of responding to changes in variables such as view corridors, sun penetration and orientation. We then in-puted different variables and allowed the models to run in real time. We then stopped the model when we felt we had a model which satisfied our concerns.

The house has a fluidity of space which is a direct result of having a strong relationship with the surrounding landscape.

TonyOwenNDM are exploring an architecture which is more responsive to the environment, We refer to this as ‘Elastic Design’. This is anchitecture that is pliant, yet has an inherent structure and ordering principle. Elastic Architecture is an architecture that is capable of responding to all manner of changing variables. We are designing spaces which expand to allow greater connectivity to the exterior environment to maximise light, air and movement flows, or retract for greater privacy and differentiation of uses.