The existing house was a single storey post-war bungalow with numerous ad-hoc additions, located on the edge of Manly Lagoon. By keeping the existing house, we were able to take advantage of set-backs and floor heights already established with the existing house. This posed a significant challenge to the overall design, but had clear advantages in terms of the overall foot-print and amount of accommodation that could fit on the site. The two-storey recycled Australian Ironwood screen provides a new dynamic form for the building and informed the material palette for other elements of the building, which are a combination of old and new.
(Source: http://utzsanby.com/portfolio-posts/manly-lagoon-house-2015/)