“A good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and taking on a certain richness”

Peter Zumthor

Critics argue that Woolley’s most influential and innovative architecture manifests at the domestic scale. His design approach to the ‘everyday’ home was deeply grounded in the modern humanism of his early travels and studies.

Cooper Street House demonstrates a profound understanding of materiality and it’s relationship to natural light. Woolley firmly believed that our perception of space is formed by the way light permeates a building. The predominately monochromatic colour palette enhances this affect, as the white, granular bagged-bricks catch the dappled light. Cooper Street’s curved walls become a canvas for shadows, and in this sense the house reveals the passage of time and seasons.

Interwoven curves appear in both the plan and section of Cooper Street, which demonstrates the power of humble, vernacular materials to evoke complex forms. Woolley’s playful manipulation of the ceiling plane is reminiscent of Alvar Aalto’s Viipuri Library Lecture Hall - as the white-washed timber form envelops the living spaces.

Annabel Melhuish