North Perth HouseContemporary Exterior, Perth

North Perth house completes a small, subdivided siteAs our cities become more dense, Australians are sitting on a secret weapon. Most of our inner-city areas have large backyards and rear lane access. This makes them perfect candidates for subdivision, as this North Perth House by Jonathan Lake Architects demonstrates. “Finding smaller parcels of land to build on, like this subdivided backyard, provides a great number of opportunities for the design, the environment and the occupants,” says Jonathan Lake.Lake made the most of this tight site by prioritising “the spaces for people over the spaces for cars”. The architect provides no lock up garage, instead leaving a small strip parking area off the rear lane. The compact, two-level home is essentially a timber box perched on a solid recycled concrete base. But these leftover spaces are not easy to build on, and that’s where the experience and skills of an architect become an asset. “The site for the North Perth House had been bought and sold three times before we got involved,” says Lake. “Every previous time the owners, using ordinary builders, had not been able to create a design that worked. Smaller sites and more challenging sites are perfect for architects because we have the ability to make them work and can create something beautiful out of them.”