Contemporary family residence designed for seamless interaction between spaces, featuring private and public zones, lush gardens, and a master retreat with panoramic views.

The Courland house floor plan is organised around the event — the way spaces relate and connect depending on what's happening and who is using them. This considers the relationship and separation between the kids' and parents' rooms, but equally respects the guest: how far they can travel before they feel they're wandering uninvited through someone's home. The typical "down the hall, turn left, last door on the right" rarely leaves a visitor feeling confident in a new space. Houses should consider all their users.

With that in mind, you approach the house through gardens. As you arrive, the entertaining and relaxing spaces greet you, introducing some of the materiality that lies beyond. This zone can be closed off entirely from the more personal family areas of the house. Moving through to the media room and powder room — that shaded threshold between public and private — you are met with gardens on either side: a signal that one zone has ended and another is about to begin.

The next zone is the kids' pavilion: bedrooms and bathrooms running boundary to boundary. To fulfil the brief of each room having access to gardens, or at minimum a view, the zone separation works in multiple ways. The bathroom shared between the boys' bedrooms creates separation while keeping each room equally distanced from it. Light and outlook here were made possible with a glass roof, lending a tropical feel beneath the palm tree.

The stair leads up to the master retreat. Perched above the kids' pavilion, it opens to reveal bespoke artwork on all four sides, ensuring every top-floor window looks out over greenery.

The overall appearance is modernist in form but contemporary in character — with an almost open, tropical approach to a private suburban setting. The design pushes what is achievable in openness for a site that could so easily have turned inward.