Citi Triplex

Four hundred square metres, two homes

The brief was two triplex units with genuine outlook, on a plot of four hundred square metres. Fitting two houses on that is arithmetic. Fitting two houses worth living in is the design problem.

Small plots are where most residential design quietly gives up. The plan gets squeezed until the rooms are only just legal, the windows end up looking at the neighbour's wall, and what should be a home becomes a volume calculation.

Build upward

Each unit is a triplex — three floors — because the only direction this site will give you is up. Going vertical buys back the floor area the footprint cannot provide, and leaves enough ground for approach, parking and a little air around the building.

It also lets the plan separate properly by level: the sociable rooms low down where people come and go, the private rooms above them, and the top floor furthest from the gate and the road noise. On a cramped site, stacking the uses is what keeps them from interfering with each other.

Where the windows look

The real work went into the window positions. On a tight plot, a window in the obvious place looks straight into the next building — so the openings are set where they catch the long view across the site, the sky, or the gap between buildings, rather than wherever the elevation would prefer them.

They are generous where they can afford to be. Large openings pull daylight deep into rooms that would otherwise feel narrow, and the upper floors get the better of it, as they always do once you are above the fence line.

The result is a pair of houses that feel considerably larger inside than the plot suggests, which is the whole point. Floor area you can measure; a room that feels open is what people actually buy.