After an initial career in engineering, Sam Carter began studying architecture, around the same time as designing his own family home in Cottesloe, Perth.

Sam wanted to take ownership of the project, but he had several years left of study, and was keen to avoid costly mistakes. ‘It was unclear how best to proceed,’ he says.

Also around this time, Sam discovered a home of ‘unusually good craft and subtlety’ emerging on a construction site in Subiaco. ‘The house was contemporary, yet sensitive to local building traditions,’ he recalls. ‘It came as a surprise then to learn that the architects, Vokes and Peters, were based in Brisbane.’

Sam got in touch with Vokes and Peters co-founder Stuart Vokes, who displayed a clear fondness and enthusiasm for Perth. He proposed an arrangement, where Sam could act as both the client and designer on his home, in collaboration with Vokes and Peters. ‘It was precisely the arrangement and encouragement I needed, and soon after I flew to Brisbane to begin design,’ says Sam.

Vokes and Peters ask clients to prepare a narrative brief to understand their desires and way of living. Sam and his partner Kelly’s story centred on their time living in England, before moving to Australia in 2006, and their attempt to reconcile their feelings toward the two.

‘We described everyday life in terms of other reconciliations between the weekday and the weekend; privacy and display; simplicity and status; and the suburban villa and the beach house to help Stuart (and ourselves) understand what would matter, and what wouldn’t,’ says Sam. ‘What mattered most was that the building would be authentic to the setting and client.’

This act of reconciliation is reflected in the newly built Cottesloe house, which contains a two storey volume of internal ‘rooms’ on one side of the block, and external rooms on the other. At the centre is an ‘arcade’ or covered walkway with openings at either end to the street and a sandy rear laneway, simultaneously connecting Sam and his family to the outdoors, one another, and the community.

Stuart explains, ‘The principal urban move establishes a grand arcade connecting the street and the lane at the rear, resulting in an unexpected porosity both through the site, and also between the interior rooms and the garden, whose footprint is almost identical with that of the house.

‘As a thought experiment, we imagine this generous civic gesture replicated up and down the street, generating a walkable, coastal urbanism of interconnected lanes, private gardens and arcades.’

The street-facing facade features two bay window forms: an intimate window seat in a sunken ‘good room’ (an English ‘snug’ of sorts in reference to the Sam and Kelly’s upbringing); and an operable screen that moderates the level of engagement between the public street and private garden beyond.

‘When the window to the terrace is cranked open, passersby are offered a glimpse of the deep private garden beyond. A window to an ordinary yet beautiful domestic life,’ says Stuart.

The material palette speaks to the surrounding houses, most of which are modest single-storey postwar cottages built by the state government, featuring white painted masonry walls, pitched terracotta roofing, and stepped chimney forms.

Accompanying landscape architecture by ALFALFAlandscape features locally appropriate, easy to look after, textural, and informal coastal natives, with crazy paving on the terrace and around the pool.

‘The garden has been a triumph. Having placed it so centrally to the design has meant that we want to take care of it; to take pride in it,’ says Sam.

‘Elsewhere, external space is left open and on show. Such generous and porous open space was once commonplace though is now, perhaps especially for Cottesloe, a little radical.’

Sam says it’s hard to be objective about the house and its merits (‘It’s like cooking an extravagant meal and eating it yourself’), so he refers to the opinions of passersby.

‘Some passersby don’t look up, which is equally as pleasing as when others stop to take notice, maybe to ask if it is a new house… they’re not always sure.’

‘Other visitors however say the place seems already familiar to them, but then can’t express why. This is the highest praise.’