A part of the brief was to upgrade the house to modern standards, which consisted of remodelling the staircase, creating an open-plan living, dining, kitchen and a bathroom at first floor level.

This project challenged our concepts of a conscious approach that combines handcrafting and technology use for a dwelling. It is through the exercise in self-building and the adoption of a CNC machine; the use of natural alternatives that were sourced locally and/or with low embodied carbon; and a deeper exploration of ways in which to reduce waste through upcycling and repurposing.

The design of the house takes a nature-centric approach, where geometry is at the forefront of design decisions involving scale, pattern and layout. The curation of each space and its function is associated with one of the five elements such that: fire - cooking, earth –dining, air – living, water - bathing, space – sleeping. Plato’s theory of the five elemental solids, described in his work, Timaeus (ca. 350 BCE), stated that each of the five elements are composed of platonic solids* of which are considered to be the building blocks of all matter.

* A platonic solid is a geometrical 3-dimensional solid whose faces are regular polygons that are identical and meet.