Niagara Park New Dwelling

This Niagara Park site was once part of an orange farm, and traces of that history are still visible in the old stone walls and mature citrus trees dotted across the property. When the client asked me to design a multi dwelling development here, I knew the design language had to acknowledge what came before. A generic suburban development would have erased the site's character entirely.

The scheme comprises two detached dwellings and one duplex, arranged across the site to preserve the best of the existing trees and maintain a sense of spaciousness between buildings. Each dwelling is oriented with its living areas facing north, looking across the Central Coast landscape toward the ridgeline beyond. The farmhouse inspired design is evident in the pitched rooflines, the verandah proportions and the material palette: weatherboard cladding, standing seam metal roofs and timber posts that reference the agricultural structures that once stood here.

The two detached homes sit at opposite ends of the site, each with their own garden and driveway, feeling genuinely independent. The duplex occupies the middle ground, with a shared wall party arrangement that still allows each half to have windows on three sides and a private rear garden. I staggered the duplex floor plans so that the bedrooms of one dwelling sit adjacent to the living area of the other, minimising noise transfer between the two households.

Inside, the rooms are proportioned to feel like a family home rather than a developer's product. Ceilings are higher than standard in the living areas, with raked sections over the kitchen that create volume without increasing the external bulk. Natural light reaches every room through a combination of conventional windows and strategically placed skylights. The old orange farm deserved buildings that respected its story, and I believe these dwellings carry that history forward into something new and liveable.