Amiri — A Courtyard House That Turns a Steep Paddington Site Into an Elevated Urban Retreat
Paddington is one of Brisbane's most characterful inner suburbs — leafy, steeply undulating, and lined with homes that press close to the street and reach upward to capture the city views that reward those who build on its slopes. It is also one of the most challenging places in Brisbane to design a new house. The blocks are typically narrow, the gradients unforgiving, and the expectation, from the street, from the neighbours, from the suburb itself, is that any new building should earn its place in one of the city's most considered residential environments.
The Amiri Courtyard House met this challenge by abandoning one of the most fundamental assumptions of conventional residential planning.
Rethinking the Site
Most houses are organised around a simple front-to-back logic: public street frontage at the front, private garden at the rear, building in between. It is an arrangement so familiar that it is rarely questioned. On many sites it works well enough. On the Amiri site — steep, narrow, with expansive city views to the east and south, it produced a house that would be simultaneously exposed to the street, disconnected from its own garden, and unable to make proper use of the views that made the site valuable in the first place.
The familiar arrangement of front yard and back yard was abandoned entirely. Instead, the building was positioned at the edges of the site to define a central courtyard, a raised inner platform that captures the city views to the east and south while maintaining a profound sense of seclusion and privacy.
This is the move that unlocks everything else about Amiri. By placing the building at the site's perimeter and the garden at its centre, the house creates its own private world — elevated above the street, open to the sky and the views, but sheltered from the noise and gaze of the city below.
The Courtyard as Urban Retreat
Amiri feels both open and closed at the same time. Privacy is enhanced as the form wraps around its own private outdoor spaces, while once inside, the home feels as though the owners have been taken to another place altogether. This quality, of being both in the city and apart from it, is the central achievement of the Amiri Courtyard House.
From the street, the house presents as a deeply fenestrated three-storey wall tempered by a suspended concrete planter, terraced garden beds, and a pergola trellis holding the entry gate along the nature strip. It is a considered, layered street presence, one that gives the suburb its due without revealing what lies within. You do not know, from the street, what Amiri contains. The discovery is reserved for those who enter.
Inside, the logic of the courtyard governs everything. The arrangement of space on both levels is composed around the central courtyard, ensuring light, ventilation, and a connection to the exterior for all rooms. The garden, paved terraces, and pool are seamlessly connected with the interior by deep curved walls and expanses of operable glazing.
The Curve as Architectural Language
Amiri is distinguished by its commitment to the curve as a primary architectural element. In most contemporary residential architecture, curves are used sparingly, as accent elements, as moments of softness in an otherwise rectilinear plan. In Amiri, the curve is structural and pervasive.
Subtle curves form the dominant architectural expression and are everywhere within the home, continuing into the joinery design and the cohesive selections of wall treatments and soft furnishings. The concerted restraint throughout gives the home a formal and material uniformity, creating a unique sense of calm.
At ground level, every effort is made to avoid excessive compartmentalisation, with the definition of living spaces achieved by only two curved wall elements, one containing the pantry and the other a bathroom. This extraordinary openness, a floor plate defined not by walls but by two carefully placed curved elements, produces a living environment of remarkable spaciousness and flow.
The facade elements fold back to allow natural elements to flow through inward, naturally cooling and lighting the interior from the surrounds, while emphasising an openness. The result is a home that breathes, where the boundary between the interior and the courtyard is not a wall but a threshold, constantly negotiated by the movement of light, air, and the people who live there.
A Collaborative Project
Amiri was a genuine collaboration between three practices: Kelder Architects as project architects, Residence Studio as interior decorators and furnishing consultants, and Lande Architects contributing to interior design. The construction was delivered by GRAYA — one of Brisbane's most accomplished luxury residential builders — and the completed project was photographed by Brock Beazley.
The project was published on The Local Project in August 2023, and has since been featured on Archello, CO-Architecture, and the Archilovers platform.
Project: Amiri Courtyard House, Paddington QLD
Type: New luxury custom home
Architecture: Kelder Architects
Interior Design: Residence Studio, Lande Architects
Builder: GRAYA
Photography: Brock Beazley
Published: The Local Project (August 2023), Archello, CO-Architecture
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