The room feels slightly too small, not uncomfortably so, but still there is something about the space.

The combination of the threshold head height, the steps down into the space and the slope of the ceiling give a vague feeling of pitching forward, an insinuated disquiet.

The internal finishes are neutral, timber below white painted plaster. Curiosity is focused, everything leads to the window that pushes forward into space above the garden.

Within the bay window, right at the edge, there is a place to stop, at the scale of a person, or to share intimately with another. It is a place to notice life in the canopy, the scallop pattern of the crashing waves on sand in the bay, movement on the ridge, or the whoop of approaching guests.

In working deliberately with proportional juxtapositions and heightened bodily experience we had in mind the architectural technique employed at the Laurentian Library. There, before a grand stair, within a foyer somehow too small, a discomfort is evident, which dissipates on entering the serene beauty of the long reading room above, made more impactful by what went before.