A courtyard house set within the leafy harbour suburb of Mosman, Sydney, reimagines a modest 1960s dwelling through a thoughtful process of architectural renewal. Designed by Trias, the project demonstrates how a courtyard house can transform an ageing structure into a contemporary family home while preserving the character and memory embedded in the original building. Rather than demolishing the existing house, the design team approached the project as what they describe as a “radical renovation”, retaining the core structure while reworking the interior and spatial experience.
Originally built by an owner-builder in the 1960s, the home possessed a quiet charm despite years of neglect. Mid-century modern elements remained present, though hidden beneath decades of wear. Early in the project, a neighbour who had grown up in the house shared a photo album documenting its original construction. These images revealed the care that went into the building’s creation, reinforcing the decision to preserve and reinterpret rather than replace it. In this way, the courtyard house became not only an architectural project but a continuation of the home’s story.
Arrival at the property sets the tone for the experience of the house. The original garage was removed as part of the renovation, allowing the front garden to extend toward the street. A native landscape designed introduces visitors to the home with a sense of generosity and calm. Instead of being met by a built barrier, guests encounter a soft threshold of planting and greenery before stepping inside.
The entry reveals a spatial composition organised around openness and connection to landscape. Sightlines extend through the home toward treetops and glimpses of Sydney Harbour. The main living level contains an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area oriented north, where the surrounding tree canopy becomes part of the daily experience. A large island bench and communal timber table encourage gathering, reinforcing the home’s role as a shared social environment.
At the heart of the design sits the internal garden that defines the courtyard house. Positioned centrally within the floor plan, the courtyard acts as both a spatial and experiential anchor. Circulation paths move around this garden so that each transition reconnects occupants with nature. Looking upward reveals a double-height void that draws natural light deep into the interior while framing views of the sky and surrounding trees.
The courtyard house also enhances environmental performance through passive design strategies. Breezes flow naturally through the home, while natural light reduces reliance on artificial lighting. Retaining much of the original structure significantly reduced embodied carbon, demonstrating how sustainability can coexist with refined architectural outcomes.
Bedrooms are oriented north and connected to shared balconies overlooking the landscape. From these rooms, residents can step outside to experience the surrounding environment throughout the day.
Ultimately, the success of this courtyard house lies in its balance of preservation and transformation. By recognising potential within an overlooked structure, Trias has created a home that honours the past while embracing contemporary life.
00:00 - Introduction to A Courtyard House That Brings the Garden Into Every Room 00:50 - The Brief and Inspiration 02:26 - Unique Design Aspects 03:00 - Walkthrough of the Home 04:50 - Sophisticated Sustainability 05:40 - Proud Moments
We often described cloaked house as being a radical renovation and it's a term that we've
come up with in the practice to describe a type of design process and building where essentially
you keep the major structural elements but you completely reimagine the interior. It's a really
amazing way to honour the original work and time that has gone into making buildings but make sure
that they can function and be made to suit contemporary life. My name is Jennifer McMaster
and I'm a founding director at Trias and I was also the lead project architect on Cloaked House.
Cloaked House is located in Mossman in Sydney. It's a really beautiful, quite idyllic Sydney
suburb that has a lot of remnant bush and so it's very leafy, very quiet, kind of wake up in the
morning to the sound of birdsong and it's also nestled into Sydney Harbour and so you get these
beautiful glimpses of the beach, the surrounding sky and the ocean. The home had been built in the
1960s by an owner-builder so it had all of these really incredible mid-century modern elements
but it was also incredibly run down and so because of that the clients assumed that we'd
need to knock the house down and build it again. But when we first came to site we all found
something in the home that we loved. It had a charm, it had a spirit to it that we all wanted
to find a way to keep. The other thing that happened was around about the time we started
the project a neighbour who happened to grow up in the house came by and gave us a photo album
that documented the original house under construction and so we had this incredible
album of family memories actually showing the original building being built and there was
something about seeing that album and all of the love and care that had gone into the original
building that also made us all think that the right thing to do was to keep the house and to
give it another lease on life so that it could have another chapter in its story.
The first thing that's really notable about this house is it doesn't actually have a carport or
garage. It originally did but we removed it as part of the renovation works so when you first
come to the home you're not blocked by any structures, you're greeted by this really
beautiful delicate native garden that we share with the street. So there's immediately this
sense of generosity and welcome that we tried to cultivate from the very first moment that you
step on site with this project. Walking to the front door you have the experience of opening
it up and immediately being revealed with the house which when you enter is where you see the
void that cuts through the centre of the floor plan and also look out onto the balcony and the
view of the distant trees beyond and then moving inside the first room is an open plan kitchen
living dining room. So the kitchen has an island bench, this beautiful timber table that everyone
can gather around and share snacks and meals or talk about their day. The dining table is anchored
in the centre of the floor plan and it looks out to the north. We get to look out into the tree canopy,
watch the birds, watch the shifting sun and the distant water. Moving downstairs to the second
level you kind of come down a timber staircase and walk through an internal courtyard garden.
And the garden is at the centre of the home and at the centre of the floor plan for a number of
reasons. So first of all it is in the heart of the home, it's a place that everything pinwheels
around and so when you move through the house you're always moving through this really beautiful
internal garden. It's a place where you can look up into the sky, look up into the trees and also
get to kind of experience this exultant double height volume as you move through the house.
Then moving through the first floor we have a series of bedrooms facing north
and all of those bedrooms have access to a north facing balcony. So it's a really lovely spot where
you can go and sit outside, be covered in the rain and experience the really beautiful outlook
that we have on the side. We're really big believers in our practice in this idea of
We see homes as a chance to showcase how we can be more sustainable but also still achieve really
exceptional architectural outcomes and Cloaked House is a really strong embodiment of these two
ideals operating together. It's passively designed so you can open up the doors, you can get fresh
breezes through, natural light penetrates the whole home so it feels really bright and open
and welcoming. We kept so much of the original structure that we were able to save considerable
amounts of embodied carbon in making that decision and yet it looks and feels like a completely new
home. The thing that I'm most proud of ultimately with this project is that we were able to keep the
existing building and honour its story and that has all of these incredible implications for the
work that we do as architects. I think we're really familiar as designers and architects and
clients even at looking at a building that has a lot of charm and that has a lot of beauty
and keeping that and restoring it and then maybe adding on to it.
What's really unique about this building is that it was a bit of an ugly duckling. It was a building
that was really run down and really needed a lot of love and a lot of care in order to bring it
back to life and I'm really proud of the fact that we saw an opportunity in keeping the building
because it's a far more interesting and imaginative and exciting project I think
because we were able to adapt and be resourceful with what we found.
