The New Year might coincide with reduced temperatures and snow for a lot of the world, but in the Southern Hemisphere it’s summer and warmth. Even though this winter is unseasonably mild for much of the USA, it’s still simple to pine for warmer temps and longer days. So let’s take a look at some homes in Australia, especially ones where connections between inside and outside are flexible and open. The next examples demonstrate that homeowners at Australia — be it Sydney, Melbourne, or even someplace in between — really enjoy their outdoor spaces and the dry climate that makes it possible for them to be an expansion of their inside.
Sam Crawford Architects
Architect Sam Crawford has a number of exceptional projects on , the majority of which display a propensity of opening living spaces to the outdoors. The Caristo House’s living/dining space extends to an outdoor dining pavilion via an operable glass wall. The house’s generous roof overhang, matched by the wall extensions, strengthens the space’s expansion to the yard.
Sam Crawford Architects
The Wake Murphie House from Crawford uses an identical sliding glass wall because the Caristo House, but on a smaller scale. With the slender canopy between the operable wall and clerestory, the dining space feels like outdoors.
Sam Crawford Architects
The Sewell House shows Crawford’s predilection for operable walls in the end of dwelling spaces, as well as his use of sloped roofs. In this house the roof actually continues on one side to eventually become wall, giving the house a unique profile that is expressed from the patio.
Sam Crawford Architects
In Crawford’s layout for the Petersham House, coated at a tour, the architect inserted a little courtyard in an existing house. A few rooms overlook the distance, a number of these opening themselves to it more than others via operable windows. The courtyard effectively creates a fresh core — a void — for the house, with just a little bit of character, skies, light, and atmosphere.
Sam Crawford Architects
Another project by Crawford mixes up things a little bit. The opening occurs in a bedroom and also in the room’s corner; however, the roof still slopes to one side. Notice the louvered band between the sliding glass doors and clerestory, a zone which allows for ventilation.
Ian Moore Architects
Architect Ian Moore’s layouts are a lot more nominal than Sam Crawford’s homes, but we still find a solid link between outside and inside. The Cohen House is notable for the distinctive all-natural circumstances: a large tree is almost dwarfed by a stone wall; the house occupies the zone in between.
Ian Moore Architects
A closer look in the Cohen House shows substantial glass walls which swing open to connect inside and out. Louvered jalousies above are utilized to ventilate the big interior space. When we step inside, next…
Ian Moore Architects
… we see the way the stone wall sits under a few feet from more sliding glass walls running the length of this distance. Taking into consideration the presence of the natural feature from outdoors, it seems sensible that the architect made it the attention of the interior living space.
Ian Moore Architects
The Cost Oreilly House from Moore seems completely closed off by the road, a geometric exercise in squares and rectangles left in gray and white.
Ian Moore Architects
Yet, at the back of the Cost Oreilly House, inside and out are linked when double-height glass walls slip to one side. The ease of this white interior is offset by this enormous operable wall which attracts the exterior, and all its messy vitality, in contact with the residents.
Rudolfsson Alliker Associates Architects
The Maroubra House from Rudolfsson Alliker Associates Architects blurs distinctions between inside and out through the use of a steel framework on two sides of the pool.
Rudolfsson Alliker Associates Architects
Looking back towards the preceding view, we can see the way the living space opens to the patio and pool via a sliding glass wall. The overall effect is one where the outdoor space is characterized by the steel framework, even as sunlight and the components input it.
Secret Gardens
This house in Sydney situates a lap pool next to the house. Overlooking the water within an outdoor patio and second-floor balcony, each linked to the interior through sliding glass doors. The opinion to the living space from the pool, and vice versa, is especially wonderful.
Jaime Kleinert Architects
The Baker House from Jaime Kleinert Architects looks just like a conventional bungalow in the front, with its hip roof, shattered windows, and symmetrical elevation.
Jaime Kleinert Architects
At the back of the Baker House this belief falls away. The roof slopes to one side, expansive glass walls open to the patio, and a flat roof caps the living space on the floor.
Jaime Kleinert Architects
A closer look reveals the big operable opening which connects inside and out. Notice the ever-present jalousies to the side which naturally ventilate the interior.
More: Sliding Walls Bring the Outside In
See More Photos of Australian Home and Garden Design