Tandem House designed by Fiona Drago Architect is for a family with young adult children that is scaling down from a large suburban property to a small urban block. Photography by Tom Blachford.

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The house is composed of two masses arranged in tandem along the depth of the site, while presenting as a single mass to the street. The two masses are separated by a courtyard, which allows natural light in to the centre of the house and down to the basement.
The house incorporates a spacious living zone, several bedroom zones and a home office, allowing the occupants to live and work separately or in unison.
The north-facing living area connects seamlessly through large sliding doors to the compact rear garden.
Inside, the light colour palette amplifies the sense of volume in each room. Most of the habitable rooms have views out to vegetation. The site is located at the corner of a quiet street and a laneway, on a site slightly wider than a standard terrace house, which provided the opportunity to design a double-fronted residence.
The services rooms (bath, laundry, kitchen) and the stairwell, functions that require less natural light, form a spine along the party wall. They are stacked on top of each another to provide greater efficiency in the services reticulation.
The clients purchased this property for its central location and high level of amenity. They wanted to live in a walkable neighbourhood and reduce the amount of time they spent maintain...