In Bellevue Hill, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Collins and Turner have repurposed a crumbling home into a castle-like lair, slicing into an imposing, 17-metre cliff face.

Photographer Richard Glover

Author Craig Johnson

This article first appeared in Architectural Review Asia Pacific issue 127: The Residential Issue.

You’re at street level, about to enter a modest, glazed doorway hidden away inside a wall of sandstone slabs. Inside there’s a high-ceilinged tunnel, and much cooler air than outside. To your left is a large, exposed rock wall, hand detailed and subtly lit – effectively a dramatic work of art, damp and dripping into a discrete catch below. As you make your way along a catwalk-style path, elevated from the ground by a few centimetres, you come to another entrance and…