Henley Clays
"Taking inspiration from the original home’s material composition, Henley Clay House by Benn and Penna Architects sees a subtle, yet monolithic extension expand its framework to embrace its carefully considered landscape."
The Local Project
"Starting from the house’s base [...] the strategy of the project makes it inseparable from the site – the brick plinth is grown from the existing sandstone base, with split levels that respond directly to the landscape around it. The rooms ascend with the natural levels of the ground, in which the building walls grow from the same brick.”
The Local Project
"Openings have been carefully arranged to puncture the buildings mass and wash its cave-like spaces with natural light, creating an interesting play on texture, movement and time."
The Local Project
"The project takes advantage of views to the harbour through strategically placed openings as one ascends through the house. The highest room – the master bedroom – is the hawk’s nest of the house, with prominent views over Sydney Harbour framed within a deep-set telescopic window."
Andrew Benn, Architect + Director
"As a philosophy, the approach to materiality is drawn from this central idea of connection to site, and as a result embodies a sense of combined robustness and softness through texture."
The Local Project
"The approach to planning and the evolution of the home’s floor plan was also born from a considered and measured process […] Rather than squeezing the rooms into a preconceived mass that is typically the approach of most suburban extensions, the building mass is ‘clustered’, so the walls surrounding each room reflects its true and absolute necessary geometry and size."
The Local Project