Aileen Sage Architects' compact Treetop Studio is a playful response to Paddington's strict building code

The Treetop Studio presents an orderly facade among an eclectic variety of houses, garages, and back fences in Paddington, Australia. Designed by Darlinghurst-based Aileen Sage Architects for a writer and musician, the compact creative studio is a refined response to the local council's strict building regulations. 

Propped on stilts over a car garage, the studio's exterior is a symmetric form with a pitched roof and a central double-hung window. Once you move inside, the volume shifts into “a playful and unexpected series of angles and reflections”, the architects describe. With this clever design, the project earned the Robert Woodward Award for Small Project Architecture in the 2018 NSW Architecture Awards.

The garage area is defined with a bare minimum of columns, bracing, paling fence and an apparently paper-thin, steel-plate staircase.

Above the garage is the studio, which is a steel and timber structure comprised of clear glazed, translucent, and opaque layers of shading screens that control temperature, privacy, and views of the surrounding neighborhood.

“Every move across all scales of this building has been thoughtfully and economically resolved resulting in a building that is greater than the sum of its parts,” the NSW Architecture Award jury noted. “A new pivoting glass door to the kitchen of the main house links the primary family living space across a landscaped garden with edibles and native plants to the studio space that provides a literal and figurative space for creative production.”

“A series of clever geometric moves, refined detailing and playful compositions elevates this simple rear addition into a refined and exemplary model of the typology,” the jury commented.

All photos courtesy 2018 NSW Architecture Awards.