Brad Swartz and industrial designer Henry Wilson create house that defies cliches

On a small site in an inner-Sydney laneway is an ingenious conversion that is a triumph of restraint over greed.

Interior stairway of industrial designer Henry Wilson’s glass block house, by Henry Wilson and Brad Swartz. Picture: Tom Ferguson

Tucked in a laneway off Taylor Square in Sydney is a luminous three-level atelier and apartment that is home to industrial designer Henry Wilson.

Completed in 2021, Glass Block House is the result of a five-year collaboration between Wilson and architect Brad Swartz. In one of the world’s most expensive property markets, the laneway house is a triumph of restraint over greed, of spatial quality over size. Others could easily have exploited the local planning regulations (which allowed an extra level to be built) to max out the resale potential.

But Wilson is not that kind of client, and Swartz is not that kind of architect. It’s not for want of ambition; far from it. What both aspire to, however, is creativity, craftsmanship, and thoughtful solutions to everyday problems.

At the heart of their collaboration was a shared purpose to do a lot with a little, and push some boundaries along the way. Both in their thirties, Swartz and Wilson have carved a niche in their respective professions, distilling each project they take on to a refined essence that distinguishes it as timeless and collectable.

Glass Block House by Henry Wilson and Brad Swartz in Darlinghurst, NSW. Picture: Tom Ferguson

Wilson designs rarified domestic objects cut or carved from marble, leather and timber, or cast in bronze, brass and aluminium. He collaborates with global brands that include home-grown skincare darling Aēsop, and more recently started his own label – Laker – with designer David Caon.

Swartz is an in-demand young architect of note for streamlined spaces in tight urban settings. His instinct for classical proportion and material restraint, combined with a boat-builder’s mind for intricate details, has earned him numerous awards and publication in several international monographs.

The brief for Glass Block House had a long gestation. Wilson had the luxury of owning the site, having lived and worked for years in the Victorian terrace house at the main street frontage.

His goal was to convert a rear off-street parking area into a new studio with apartment above, leaving a central courtyard between old and new as a secure outdoor haven shared by both.

Occupying a modest footprint of 56sq m, the new building replaces a double tandem car space just under 5m wide. It faces west onto a laneway and east into the courtyard. Redevelopment of these rear lane sites over the years has resulted in a random mix of detached structures and additions, some worse than others.

Swartz had spent a lot of time studying the area and the site. Having started his practice off the back of the much vaunted redesign of a 27sq m apartment nearby, he was sharing studio space in the terrace with Wilson, so their exchange of ideas about the new laneway house flowed freely.

“There was a time in the brief when it was really bare bones – open ceiling rafters, unplastered blockwork – a raw shell, really, and I would live in this loft-like space with all the plumbing and wiring exposed,” recalls Wilson. “I have a tendency to not like finishing things, I like that little bit left undone. There’s something in my own work that leaves a bit unfinished.”

“The brief is always a moving part – it gets refined as your design evolves,” says Swartz. “Basically, we designed a three-level building that could be used as a home, an office or a showroom, or converted completely into an office at some point, if he needed to. For Henry, flexibility was key.”

Glass bricks allow light into the bathroom. Photo: Tom Ferguson

While Wilson was thinking along material lines, Swartz was working on the floorplan, looking for ways not just to make the interior flexible, but to make it feel generous rather than compact, with sightlines through the apartment from every room in the house.

Containing the building to three levels (instead of the four allowable) gave each one high ceilings, well above 3m, lending the rooms a graciously vintage proportion. Swartz played on this to maximise light, privacy and a pastiche of views across rooftop sundecks to the city by swapping the typical terrace model for a Palladian plan.

The studio was located at street level with a private bedroom level above, and the top devoted to a flowing living area, dining room, kitchen and terrace. Next, he whittled down the dedicated circulation space to a lean 4sq m – far less than a typical terrace, which can easily consume twice that amount between staircase and corridor.

The instrument of this saving was a central spiral staircase connecting the levels, in conjunction with a walk-through ensuite on the middle level that links the master bedroom and study.

Living area. Photo: Tom Ferguson

“Resolving the spiral stair was key to finding efficiencies in the floorplan and making the most of the building width. It’s designed as a sculptural presence, to be a key experience of the house,” explains Swartz.

To squeeze every centimetre from the plan, a single-skin water-proofed concrete block system was used for the north and south boundary structural walls, saving 140mm in width internally.

The east and west elevations are infilled with sandblasted glass block walls – the building’s signature – that softly diffuse light through the levels with no loss of privacy. Their dimensions (200 x 200mm) underpinned a modular construction logic devised to create seamless intersections between floors, walls and ceilings, as Swartz explains.

“Everything in the building is to a 200mm module. The concrete blockwork walls are also constructed to a 200mm grid, so walls align precisely to the glass blocks. Even the coved ceilings are scribed to a 200mm radius.”

They had originally considered a Venetian solid glass block, but ultimately selected a standard block, sourced locally by Obeco. The idea of using a ubiquitous building product to create something refined appeals to Wilson’s sense of cohesion.

“It’s a nod to industrial design we built into the house,” says Wilson. “Not only is the glass block a perfect and durable product in its own right, but the concrete block for the walls is a matching product language.”

Interior of the house. Photo: Tom Ferguson

Another nod to Wilson’s process are the cast concrete treads on the staircase, which Swartz had originally imagined in steel. Interlocking around a steel pillar, the smooth concrete treads spiral upwards, anchoring a tubular bronze balustrade. The stairs are open at the drive-in studio (think James Bond), move into a more enclosed shaft on the bedroom level, then open up again at the top.

“Henry had a very smooth mould made for the treads, but any imperfections in the staircase we decided to leave as they were,” says Swartz. While the studio floor is burnished concrete, tough enough for a workshop or gallery, upstairs a milky travertine floor flows through the living area and master ensuite.

It grounds these serene white spaces with a texture as old as Rome. Wilson wanted the stone to be free flowing, with no visible joint lines, just like that laid by Italian immigrants in the early 20th century at Pennsylvania (Penn) Station, New York’s famous Beaux-Arts interchange.

Undeterred by builders who warned it shouldn’t be done, Wilson turned to the owner of an original Philip Johnson house where the same stone floor is also seamless for advice on lapping the tiles for a tight fit. That attention to fine architectural details, and Wilson’s eclectic furnishings, convey the easy elegance of a European villa, from the smooth plastered walls and gently coved ceilings, to sheer, billowing drapes and bronze or blown-glass lighting.

The lab-like kitchen in stainless steel is equipped with a 1980s Murano glass light by Italian architect Carlo Scarpa. It plays off an austere Alvar Aalto standard lamp that backlights the glass block wall and six black Vico Magistretti dining chairs. In the mix are several of Wilson’s own designs.

Dining area. Photo: Tom Ferguson

In the study, the ergonomic Continental Shelf system by Laker (Wilson’s furniture brand) is perfectly at ease with the flamboyant 1980s Murano glass chandelier – a pendant version of the kitchen’s. Other such pairings throughout the apartment make its curation both calming and surprising; restrained, yet lush.

It’s a far cry from the raw, unfinished shell client and architect initially discussed. What hasn’t altered is the serviceability of the garage for a workshop or gallery space, and the glass block walls that so beautifully illuminate the apartment and at the same time lend it silence.

The initial inspiration for a glass block house had come years before, when Wilson was holidaying in France and visited Maison de Verre.

Completed in 1932 in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, it was designed by Dutch engineer/architect Bernard Bijvoet and French interior architect Pierre Chareau as a doctor’s clinic and residence. Its defining features are translucent glass block walls, exposed material construction, and industrial mechanisms that include a rotating screen to hide the private quarters from patients’ view by day.

Kitchen of the home. Photo: Tom Ferguson

“It struck me on many levels, even more than its industrial design,” says Wilson. “There is a theatre to the house that’s fascinating, the way it forces you to move through it.”

Reflecting on the collaboration with Wilson, Swartz says: “Everything from the glass block walls back has gone through a lot of iterations in thinking. In many ways it’s been more like an industrial design project than an architectural one. But I think you can see clearly both Henry and my aesthetics and hand in the final result.”

For his part, says Wilson: “I’ve got a lot more respect for architects now. When I design a product, we prototype and play with it, refining as we go, until it gets made. And then it’s made on repeat. But a house is a one-off.”