214 Chesterton Road

214 Chesterton Road is a two-storey detached house of modular dry construction, notable for its innovative use of materials and systematic planning grid.

The house is built from a tanalised Canadian hemlock spruce timber frame arranged on a 3.8 metre by 3.8 metre grid, with composite columns. The grid incorporates doors, windows, and external Eternit plastic-coated panels finished with timber cover strips. Internal panels are of woodwool and smooth buff-coloured Eternit plastic-coated panels, with ceilings of woodwool slabs. The chipboard floor is carpeted throughout except for cork tiles in bathrooms and the kitchen. Windows are white-painted wooden casements with double glazing. The pitched roof is covered with corrugated blue-black asbestos cement sheets. The house rests on short stilts, with slight eaves overhangs provided for weathering.

The plan is T-shaped, composed of six grid squares arranged around a single central king pin or large post at the house's heart. A central group of four squares is flanked by additional single squares extending to the front (north) and back (south) on the east side. The first floor slightly overhangs the ground floor on the east and west sides.

The ground floor contains an entrance hall, reached via a carport at the recessed front door, which opens onto a kitchen to the right and playroom to the left, with stairs and living room ahead. The living room and dining room are open plan. The dining room, occupying a complete grid square, steps down from the living room (two squares) and kitchen, responding to a low brick retaining wall cutting diagonally across the site. The living room is double-height, with a narrow staircase ascending to a library and gallery. A change in level is deliberate throughout the ground floor. The central hallway ends obliquely at the king pin, overlooking the living room via an internal window.

The first floor accommodates a main bedroom over the dining room, children's bedrooms to the front, and a study or studio on the east side with access to the library and gallery. A children's first-floor shower room has been relocated to the ground floor but retains original fittings, demonstrating the structural and service flexibility of the design.

Externally, the street-facing (north) façade is reticent, with enamelled panelling punctuated by minimal fenestration. The garden-facing (south) façade is dramatic: the raised, projecting living room grid square is fully glazed on three sides within the prominent wooden frame, offering views through the house to the garden beyond, where mature trees provide natural shading.

Interior finishes are deliberately simple, with timber predominating and imparting a slight green cast, reflected in the exposed Eternit plastic-coated panels and woodwool slabs. The house is characterised by openness and abundant light from the full-height glazed walls of the living room, glazed panels between living and dining spaces and adjoining rooms, and open-tread stairs. The double-height living room is the principal interior space. The unglazed portion of the east wall is entirely fitted with bookshelves, their construction carefully expressed. Other rooms are smaller and simpler, with built-in cupboards designed by the architect throughout.