Enter Presents 'The Knot House'... A Teaser.

[Image Credit: Shutterstock.]

The knot for us recently became a jumping point for design discussions in our office.

Faced with a site on Military Road here in Sydney, with breathtaking views out onto the water, and at the same time realising severe privacy issues the area has with its close neighbouring property boundaries ,Enter began a design exploration into the notion of public and private spaces within a 'home'.

This design process investigated spatial intimacy, and just as a scarf might layer and wrap the neck, the architecture and the spatial layout investigates the notion of envelopment.

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[Image: 'Military Rd House Sketch', Enter Architecture.]

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[Image: 'Military Rd House Axonometric', Enter Architecture.]


The Knot house studies this deep rooted overlap between the public and private moments and spaces within a dwelling. As we believe, there is no clear distinction but instead a blur, public and private spaces within the Knot house flow through one another, cross one another, and loop through one another. Through this encompassing gesture, the architecture wraps within itself courtyards.

These intimate courtyard moments allow for light and fresh air to wash through the interiors without sacrificing the privacy of the dwelling. The form begins to follow and express the fluidity of the layout as spaces shift into one another seamlessly as one moves and navigates around these central courtyards.

For the first time, we proudly present, The Knot House....

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[Image: 'Military Rd House Rendering', Enter Architecture.]

...The Secret Courtyard in Bondi....

[Image: 'The Secret Garden', 1st Ed. Written by Frances Hodgson Burnett.]

"Mary: It's a secret garden.
Dickon: Secrets are safe with me. "
Hodgson-Burnett, 1911

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[Image: 'Bondi Project Landscape Plan First Floor, Enter Architecture.]

There is a courtyard in the centre of the Bondi Residences. This courtyard is simply for the residents to use, and acts not only as access to all the individual pods, but forms communal outdoor spaces too.

Inspired by the art deco heritage of the area, residents walk through the main entry to ascend up a large staircase into the courtyard at the projects centre. And there, within the architecture, is a truly surreal hidden moment... and it engulfs you, as the ribbons skim past, and the light just reflects off the concrete bevels...the vines pour over the balustrades and over hang above...

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[Image: 'Bondi Project Section Expressing the Courtyard', Enter Architecture.]

The Bondi Residences was always about exploration. However it was not just about us imagining. Rather, it was about us trying to re-imagine how contemporary Bondi residents could perhaps live. It suggests a lifestyle about communal spaces, and introducing more ways in which the interior and exterior boundaries could be blurred.

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[Image: 'Bondi Project Roof Terraces Landscape Plan', Enter Architecture.]


There seems to always be a distinction between an 'interior' and an 'exterior'. I am not sure what decides it (and it could be a lengthy debate) though many a theorist have attempted to define it....is it a door, a wall, a roof, transparency, porosity, or......however the fact that there is a distinction, is fascinating. This distinction means that we can continually explore and play with that boundary.

"The light filtered through the leaves and pine needles above as if through lace, the ground spotted in shadow."
John Green, Looking For Alaska

...The Inner Workings Exposed...Exploded!

[Image: Exploded Axo Diagram showing the Inner Workings of the Bondi Scheme, Enter Architecture.]

I have often found that as architects we question the notion of 'concept'. I suppose it stems from so many projects we have seen, where concepts have been cheesy add ons, or even worse, merely surface-tecture. So from that understanding, when designing Bondi, we were extremely sensitive to this notion of flow and the continuous ribbon concept that must infact permeate all aspects of the scheme and help to guide the evolution of the project.

[Image: The Anatomy of A Shoulder, Leonardo Da Vinci.]

Hence the ribbons do just that. They form a skeletal element that wraps, and interweaves all the elements together. Almost like tendons, they weave and support an envelope that it itself permeates through into. The ribbons seep through the project, at times becoming joinery elements, defining geometries, create movement paths, forming intermediate walls...But perhaps the narrative is at its most poignant when explored through the diagram, and what is seen, is the means by which the outer ribbons and interior ribbons from an ethereal buffer for an interior environment or zone.

The diagram for us here at Enter, has always been a key tool for us to explore and explain the inner workings of a project. From simple sketches in the back of our moleskin's to rendered axo's for presentations, these drawings seem to form a really interesting record or journal of our process.

Perhaps then, for us here at Enter, the diagram is 'black'...it ain't going out of style!