High ideal

With an elevated view of Sydney Harbour, this house had to be equally spectacular – and this translucent showstopper by architects PopovBass doesn’t disappoint.

CHRIS PEARSON

While the occupants of this luminous home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs enjoy dress-circle views, anyone contemplating the facade savours a spectacle just as striking. Reaching skyward, the house steps up the hillside in a series of planes, which its creator, architect Brian Bass of PopovBass, compares to an Aztec temple. While its sculptural form may be as worthy of wonder – for its design and its construction – fortunately the only thing sacrificed here was the uninspiring 1960s house that greeted him when he arrived four years ago. “The site was so much better than the house on it,” says Brian. “Because the property is on the high side of the road, it commands amazing views of the harbour and the city, as if surveying the landscape below.”

The brief was for “a standard four-bedroom family home, with a large living and dining space,” says Brian, understating what he and colleague Anthony Zonaga produced for the owners. As they are also great entertainers and love cooking, often hosting up to 25 people, the kitchen had to be part of the action. And, unsurprisingly, the house had to soak up those sensational harbour views. “They wanted to take advantage of that view from the living room and main bedroom, which both run the full width of the site,” says Brian.

“The new house claims the hillside with a series of steps,” he adds. “There’s a ground plane with a building on it, stepping up on high and facing the view.” The pool is the first storey above the street and a broad concrete staircase “folds up the hill” to the living room, eschewing any balustrades that might “clutter” that vista. To the same end, there are no support columns between the walls on either side, achieved with a giant U-shaped steel beam that ingeniously creates a bench seat in the main bedroom, which in turn frames the panorama laid out before it.