Front Elevation with Cantilevered Stone Facade

Each upper floor is pushed out past the one below as a cantilevered slab, so the balcony is the underside of the floor above rather than a bolted-on box. That gives every level its own covered outdoor space and throws shade on the glass beneath. The undersides are lined in wood with small recessed downlights set into them. Frameless glass railings keep the edge open so the depth of the overhang shows. It is the move that gives the house its stacked, layered look.

Those are trailing creepers planted in beds along the roof and balcony edges, left to spill down over the front. Against all the stone and straight slabs, the soft falling green breaks up the hard horizontal lines. It also ages the building in a good way, softening a brand-new facade. The thing to know is that hanging planters like these need their own watering and trimming, or they dry out and look patchy from the street.

A path of large stone slabs set with grass joints leads from the driveway to the front door. The same grass-jointed paving runs across the driveway itself, so the hard surface stays broken up with green. Low planting and a raised white planter with upright snake plants line the way in. The ground floor sits a couple of steps up, with the door tucked under the first cantilevered floor, so you are already under cover as you reach it.

The lighting is built into the architecture rather than added on. Recessed downlights sit in the wood soffits under each overhang, so the balconies and the entrance are lit from above. On the ground-floor stone wall there are square up-and-down wall lights that throw a cone of light both ways. There are no tall lamp posts. Keeping the fittings small and recessed means the stone and wood read as the feature at night, not the light fittings.

They cost more than floors that sit on columns or walls, yes. Pushing a slab out into open air needs extra steel and careful engineering so it stays stiff and does not sag over time. The undersides also need proper waterproofing and drainage, since they are exposed to weather on three sides. You are paying for that structure before any of the stone or wood goes on. The payoff is the shaded balconies and the floating look, which a column-supported design cannot give you.

Less than a painted wall, but not nothing. Natural stone does not need repainting, which is its big advantage, though it should be sealed so it does not soak up water and stain. The rough random-cut stone catches more dust in its joints than the smooth stone, so it wants an occasional wash. The wood soffits need re-coating every few years to hold their colour outdoors. The creepers are the highest-maintenance part, needing regular water and trimming.

It can, because the ideas behind it scale down. You do not need a huge frontage to mix two stones and a wood soffit, or to cantilever one floor over the entrance for a covered porch. On a tight plot you might cantilever just the first floor rather than every level, which keeps the look but cuts the structural cost. Trim the number of balconies and keep the grass-joint path. The part that suffers first on a narrow front is the wide, stacked, layered massing.