Tribe is known for thoughtful and innovative design outcomes in residential projects.
Tribe Studio Architects is a Sydney-based practice that is seriously playful about architectural design.
We are serious about the responsibility inherent in architectural design regardless of the size or type of project. We design work that generously contributes to both the individual and collective need. At the heart of delivering to the collective is our obligation to the planet; to design and act sustainably and to use our inventive mindset to pursue innovative responses to today’s challenges.
We pursue playfulness to unlock the potential of each project. We have developed an understanding through 20 years of experience that inventiveness and creative collaboration in the design process delivers the best results.
Ultimately we value joy. We strive to create happiness and pleasure for clients, the community, habitats and environments in which our designs will exist, and for all the people we collaborate with along the way.
It’s our philosophy of serious playfulness that has helped us win over 30 awards at state, national and international level including for innovative sustainability.
Tribe
Bronte house is a calm, quiet, private oasis in this popular and densely populated area. There is a strong relationship with the epicness of the coastal landscape. The house is monolithic and elemental, as if it were carved from a solid block of brickwork by sun, wind and time.
Our ambition was to create a sense of calm, quiet, private oasis in this popular and densely populated area. We wanted a sense of relationship with the epicness of the coastal landscape and the specialness of the natural environment. The house is monolithic and elemental. At the same time, it is neighbourly, following the subdivision pattern, and sliced off in plan and section to preserve sun and privacy to South-facing rear gardens. It is a celebration of light – direct light, shadows, reflected light and patterns. Light bouncing off the pool David Hockneys up the reflector wall. Light bouncing off the neighbours red tile roof refracts like stained glass through the brick screened windows.
A home that is filled with light, high ceilings
- a very elemental structure, concrete, brick, terrazzo and spotted gum - cool in summer, spacious and private.
This grand old Arts and Crafts dame in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs channels the spirit of the original architect in its restoration and extension. Opening up to sun, garden and view, the house now addresses its beautiful garden, supports energetic and playful family life as well as contemporary work from home
The brief was to update and extend this beautiful but tired Edwardian Arts and Crafts house to suit a young family. Extrapolating from the existing architectural logic we extended the house on its own terms. The gabled roof is stretched to the north to house more bedrooms, the stone base is extended towards a new pool area for play space and concealed parking.
The design is a series of rich, considered and playful moves that respect the ethos of the original house. We have used the ethos of the arts and crafts to be inventive with detail, to embrace narrative within the design and to lean into meaningful idiosyncrasy.
Alterations and additions to an existing house in Sydney’s Lower North shore follow the envelope of the existing house, whilst fully refreshing the architectural and interior expression. The final design presents as a charred timber bungalow hovering in a first-floor garden above an expanded living space. The design opens up the ground floor to the front, accessing sunlight and opening up to the view to middle harbour, while connecting to the existing pool at South.
The interior has two distinct characters. The ground floor is outward looking, enjoying pool, garden, terrace and view. Perimeter walls are largely glazed and the concrete ceiling/soffit is continuous indoors and out. Internal walls are treated as minimal joinery blocks.
The first floor, by comparison, is cosy and introspective. Windows frame specific views and the ceilings follow the volume of the roof, making warm private sleeping spaces.
With the clients being keen entertainers, the new indoor/outdoor kitchen island has been a much-used addition.
Located in a heritage conservation area in Northern Sydney, the design took its cues from the playful and decorative language of the Federation, using a material language that responds to the brick, tile and timberfretwork of the original house.
Tribe undertook a self-effacing renovation of a gracious Federation bungalow. The design solution took the form of a contemporary repackaging of the three-storey home on a site that dropped away steeply to the rear. The project speaks to how a project can harness contemporary design while respecting the predominant Sydney foreshore language of pitched tiled roof sitting in mature vegetation canopy.
An amalgamation of a pair of single story semi-detached workers’ cottages into a gracious single residence spanning three levels.
Respecting the original modest street expression and symmetry of the twin houses, Tribe created an enlarged central circulation spine where there once were two, whilst eking out new space within an enlarged roof envelope.
The restoration saw the house being opened up to the sun, with the new ground floor central hallway arriving into a generous full width living space that opens onto a north facing garden and pool.
A masterful alteration and addition to an existing Californian bungalow that plays with perceptions of scale and respects neighbourhood character.
The new rear volume morphs into the old roofline gaining incremental height through a series of additional terraotta-tiled roof layers stacked up and then sheared off at the rear in a blunt wall veiled in blackened timber.
A new infill to a large Victorian terrace responds to the existing masonry and cast iron with a contemporary language of oform concrete and filigree steel.
This addition to an Old English Style bungalow is a playful call-and-response in brickwork arches.
The Roseville house addition sits politely in its heritage context and embodies the playful spirit of the original house. In this celebration of heritage craftsmanship, the rear elevation speaks to the glorious brick sunburst over the original front door.
