QUESTIONS FOR ARCHITECT Q. What were you trying to achieve with your design of this dwelling? Take the clients Brief for French Colonial (Asian Pacific) atmosphere and marry it with weather board and stucco on lathes of the existing simple box with steep pitched roof... slightly Federation flavour. I also wanted to explore some ideas I had about Rennie MacKintosh\'s houses in particular his tea rooms as relate to the stair of the house. I wanted to get that light floating feel of the ornament / filigree fretwork happening in the stairs balcony sun shade awnings. Please see design models attached. The cantilever balcony that hangs over the back yard without posts that pinch the play space and keeps fairly close to the original footprint. The gutsy organic shape of the curved C section beam swings out over the garden and has coiled brackets that visually support it below. Q. What were some of the challenges you encountered during the design process, and how did you resolve them? Take advantage of the city views which means lifiting the upper floor level higher than you might normally but still keeping below the existing ridge line. The Planning Building Envelope was also to be negotiated, this tends to be a skin insiode which we fitted. We slipped through before overlooking of neighbors private open space was such a planning issue. But its nearly a cliff site every body above can look down on every body below as nature intended. Suprisingly its a difficult house to photograph from the lanes and streets about and thus has great privacy. Q. Which part of the design do you think works particularly well? The city views, the volumes of the spaces flowing into and over each other. the comfortglass pilkington windows work well keeping the house warm in winter, although the tinge the plastic film puts on the light is not desired and it marks too easily. Q. Is there anything you would have