Reddish brick catches the light first, then the openings cut deeper into the volume and pull the eye toward the trees. The house is set up to resist the usual detached-home formula on a clipped lawn. Instead, it reads as an expressive brick house that settles into the greenery with a stronger edge at the street and a looser relationship to the garden. The result is less about display than about occupation: the building takes its place in the planting, while the brickwork keeps its own texture and weight.

Brick laid rough enough to age in place

The red brick facade has a visibly uneven surface, with mortar pushed out in thick, rounded joints. That rough handling gives the walls a more tactile register than a flat, polished finish would allow. Large rectangular windows sit cleanly inside the masonry, and the dark lintel lines above them remain visible rather than hidden. It is a straightforward move, but it keeps the structure legible. Over time, the brickwork detail is expected to take on patina and settle further into the garden connection around it.

Material choice is kept deliberately narrow inside the house as well. Concrete floors, wooden parquet and white plastered walls and ceilings set up a restrained backdrop for the split-level house layout. Nothing tries to compete with the brick outside. The interior instead relies on surfaces that register light clearly: the pale walls sharpen the edge of every opening, while the wooden floor softens the transition between zones. The palette is quiet, but it is not blank. Each material is there to show use, shadow and grain.

Split levels that keep sightlines moving

The interior sequence is built in steps. Kitchen and dining area sit at ground level along the rear elevation, the seating area rises half a level, and the study and reading corner sit higher still at first-floor level. Because the ceiling above the lounge is taller, the interior sightlines extend from the reading area all the way back to the kitchen. You can read the house almost in one glance, yet the spaces do not collapse into one another. Their height, floor finish and position give each zone a different register.

This split-level house makes circulation part of the experience. Moving through it changes the view each time: one moment the garden is framed low, the next the street is caught at an angle, then the plan opens back toward the rear. The bedrooms and bathroom are grouped upstairs and reached by a wooden staircase that runs beside the void over the seating area and the study. The stair is not hidden away; it becomes one of the main pieces that ties the levels together.

A wooden staircase beside the void

Seen from inside, the wooden staircase works against the hard edges of the masonry outside. Its treads add warmth in the visual sense, but more importantly they give the split-level house a clear route upward. The void beside it lets light travel between floors, and it also keeps the upper rooms connected to the level below. From the reading corner, the eye can pass over the stair, across the lounge and on toward the kitchen at the back.

Openings placed for light, view and privacy

On the west side, the stepped relationship between the study, the seating area and the dining space becomes visible in the shape of the volume. A notch taken out of the building makes room for the carport, which leaves the massing more articulate than a simple block would be. The seating area looks toward both the garden and the street. On the east side, a narrow horizontal window set close to the ceiling brings daylight into the parents’ bathroom and bedroom while preserving privacy. The opening is small, but it changes the room.

Large windows are used with restraint, not as a glass wall effect. Their size and position respond to each room’s use. At the rear, the kitchen and dining area sit directly against the garden side. Elsewhere, the openings are tuned to frame a view or lift light high into a space. The house in greenery never relies on a single spectacular gesture. Instead, it uses repeated, specific cuts in the masonry to keep the interior connected to the outside without flattening the plan.

Mortar, patina and the evidence of making

The brickwork detail carries the memory of how the material is made. Some bricks are visibly overfired, with darker marks and irregular tones that break up the red field. Those variations are left in place, not corrected away. Together with the thick mortar joints, they give the surface a rawer appearance that sits well beside the garden planting. The wall does not aim for uniformity. It accepts variation as part of the final image, which is why the facade already feels ready to age rather than needing to be disguised by it.

That approach continues in the relationship between house and site. The garden is not trimmed down to a flat border around the building. The planting grows close to the walls, and the paving at the entrance and terrace stays open enough to let the vegetation remain visible. The house in greenery is therefore not just a phrase here. It is a spatial decision: the masonry, the planting and the paved approach are allowed to overlap visually, so the outside terrain is read as part of the project rather than as a decorative frame around it.

Carport and entrance as part of the volume

The carport is cut directly into the building mass, which gives the entrance side a more active profile. Wood accents appear in the sheltered opening and soften the deeper void under the overhang. From the outside, that cut-out reads as a practical opening; from the inside, it helps explain how the split-level house is organized. The volume is not a single solid block with holes made later. It is shaped by subtraction, by steps and by the way each room meets the next.

In the interior, the white plastered walls and ceiling keep the focus on those shifts in level and light. A large glazed opening beside the living area looks out to the greenery, while the white surfaces make the frame feel sharper. Nothing in the room depends on ornament. The sequence of brick, plaster, wood and glass does the work instead. That is what gives the house its direct character: a red brick facade outside, a measured set of interior sightlines inside, and a garden connection that stays visible from room to room.

Read together, the plan and the elevations follow the same logic. The exterior massing shows where the interior steps, openings and voids sit. The interior, in turn, explains why the outside breaks where it does. The expressive brick house keeps those two readings close. It does not hide the split-level house layout behind a neutral shell, and it does not turn the garden connection into a single panoramic gesture. It lets brickwork, light and movement define the whole sequence.