Inside Sculpted, a Sydney Home Built Like a Macro Sculpture.

We’ve followed Madeleine Blanchfield’s work for years—her own family’s treehouse retreat, a mirrored outhouse tucked into the Kangaroo Valley bush—and her latest project, aptly named Sculpted, might be our favourite one yet.

Nestled into a hillside across from Bronte Gully, the three-storey home began as a close collaboration between Madeleine Blanchfield Architects and the client, a working ceramicist and timber artist. Rather than design a house and add art to it, the studio treated the entire building as a macro sculpture—carving the architecture into the landscape and distilling it down to its essential expression.

“The main conceptual principle was to build a home with zero superfluous layers,” says Madeleine Blanchfield. “The project explores materiality in its rawest form while taking on board our core values of solar-passive design, rigorous planning and finessed detailing.”

Tree House in Bronte by Madeleine Blanchfield Architects.

Madeleine Blanchfield's Tree House in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs is a relaxing escape for her own growing family.

That rawness is structural, not decorative. The house is built almost entirely from locally sourced Krause ‘Bronte’ bricks, concrete and oak, with no applied finishes—all electrical and plumbing services are concealed within the brick walls to keep every surface uninterrupted. The concrete floor is the structural slab itself.

“It is very unusual for the slab to be the finished floor, and there is no room for error,” Blanchfield says. “After the pour, the wind blew gum leaves onto the concrete in the girls’ bedrooms. Nature’s accidental marks became akin to a ceramicist’s intentional stamping process, and are embraced as part of the house’s story.”

Across three levels, the interiors lean sculptural too—a Michel Boyer brutalist coffee table, a vintage ‘Le Bambole’ sofa by B&B Italia, an ‘Eros’ nesting table by Angelo Mangiarotti.

Arent&Pyke Soften a Federation Home in Mosman with Curves, Colour and Slow-Crafted Stone.

Few Australian studios have built a business as quietly assured as Arent&Pyke. At Bradleys Head House in Mosman, that same generosity of spirit fills every room.

Downstairs, the garage gives way to a full sculpture studio for the client, artist Aaron Crothers, whose ceramic and timber works sit throughout the home alongside Akari lighting.

Solar-passive principles do the quiet work behind the scenes—heat sinks in the concrete floor, generous northern eaves, cross ventilation and high-level glazing, backed by PV cells and rainwater recycling. Landscaping by Dangar Barin Smith wraps the home in native planting, blurring the line between inside and out.

The result is a house that reads as honestly as the materials it’s built from—relatively modest in its means, but generous in what it gives back.

Strength, Not Ornament: The Distinctly Female Presence Behind Coogee House III.

In Coogee, Sydney architect Hannah Tribe and interior designer Genevieve Hromas shaped a family home around a distinctly female presence, expressed through strength.

[Architecture & Interior Design: Madeleine Blanchfield Architects. Builder: Owner built, with Hoven Homes assisting. Structural Engineer: Lindsay and Associates. Landscape Architecture: Dangar Barin Smith. Photo styling by Jack Milenkovic. Photography by Anson Smart.]