Alison Court Backyard

 

A question of how to best utilise a bit of backyard space expanded from a shed to an outdoor cinema with pizza oven and associated fire side low seating.

 

 

1:1 backyard model

Testing heights and sunlight.

E + P's Studio

Bike rack with WC / Bath / Laundry behind.
Studio with Mezzanine over the garden shed. 
Maximising every sq.cm in downtown Brunswick. 

Jackson Street Finished + Photographed

    

Our practice is quite enamored with post WWII duplex housing, of which the Burnley Racecourse Estate is the first Melbourne example. See our previous projects with 2 bedroom versions of the type in Hampton East and Preston.

In Burnley, an oddly shaped extension retains the charms of the original house and maintains a usable backyard with passive solar access.

 

 

 

 

 

It integrates readily identifiable sustainable ambitions into the building fabric with a Trombe wall entry and a Sky planter frame / water pipe pergola. In coordination with new garden areas the project offers a long term home for the family, the 3 kids, their chickens, dog, bikes, vegie garden and kayaks.

A collboration with Rohan Syer Landscape Design and built by MhD of Myrtle Street fame.

Photos by Erica Lauthier.

Frame up at the Terip Terip Schoolhouse

 

A new two room addition to an existing country schoolhouse.
The tactic here was deference to the beautifully ornate and intact original building.
When our clients included a Breezeway and a Quadrangle in their initial plan we almost couldn’t control our delight.
The new addition is a concrete block homage to school toilet blocks, with timber lining to the quadrangle and a pitched roof matching the original building form.
Our desire was that the new sits lower than the existing and the Breezeway sits under the original eaves line. 

Hobsons Bay Yacht Club Addition

A new addition to the existing yellow brick art deco yacht club in Williamstown.
The design is a rectilnear brick container that reveals it's inards / embellishes detail to the north east.
We loved the everyman nature of HBYC with their club facility to be able to service your own boat. This manifests itself in built form with a run of 1x1.5m sheds along the northern boundary.

Another gratuitous plug

Another exhibition coming up in North Fitzroy.

Opening night is Wed 3rd October. 

Come along for a look and a drink.

For images of work in progress or earlier works see Kirsty's blog.

Myrtle St. The Presentation

As presented at the architects institute awards last weekend.
See previous posts here, here, here and here

Myrtle Street Relativity

This project is located on a narrow street in an area characterised by compact lots and largely intact Edwardian streetscapes. The site’s original house was a Bungalow which had been renovated in the Bavarian Style in the 1970’s and was judged to have reached the end of its useful life.

 

The new dwelling was designed for a family of five relocating from Wheeler’s Hill to East St. Kilda. They moved from a 370sq.m. house on a site of 1000sq.m. to the new 200sq.m. home on a site of 370sq.m with no significant changes to the family structure. The brief required flexible room functions to accommodate boomerang children, work from home spaces and acoustic separation for a drummer’s budding musical career. While the new house is slightly smaller than the 214 sqm average new Australian house size, the challenge of condensing the brief into a smaller dwelling on a much smaller lot raised expectations of spatial relativity.

 

The family’s decision to downsize their home but not their life was, in part, a conscious desire for a smaller footprint and a more sustainable home. A high performing dwelling that exploited the limited passive solar siting opportunities was requested. A core of concrete block orders the internal spaces, provides centred vertical circulation and stack effect venting as well as mitigating thermal fluctuations to the second storey.

 

The houses massing, siting, and the external disposition of materials respond to an analysis of the characteristics of surrounding Edwardian dwellings. Neighbouring housing forms have been abstracted towards a simple expression of volume and material richness has been concentrated around openings. The entry arrangement, big roof and heavily crafted entry relate the new to neighbouring.

This contemporary interpretation of an Edwardian house has generated debate amongst the neighbours.

Our favourite criticism was that it looks like a shearer’s shed.

Art deco apartment in Balaclava

 

Externally a new deck has a view out to Carlisle St and operable glass privacy screens and shading blinds. Internally the kitchen was integrated into the surrounding spaces with greater connection to the entry hall and openings through to the dining room, deck and laundry. Spaces have duel functions and long views which enlarge the experience of each room; the laundry is an extension of the kitchen and the deck, , the kitchen and deck are linked via a servery window and bathroom and kitchen views extend thru adjacent spaces to connect with outside.

 

 

Cardboard study model: Project was about making a compartmentalised Art Deco apartment feel open and integrated and increasing the external stair landing to create a deck.

 

Twist Creek

 

 

A country residence in progress

Toilet Triptych

3 unrealised public toilet projects from the archives.

Euroa

For the local Lions club, who wanted something of the Kelly history worked in. We though literal was best.

Port Gellibrand

An expression of interest for Parks Vic. A shipping container located ever so contextually next to the beach, with incisions learnt from Phooey at Skinners.

Trailer Mark II

A long car haul trailer with the Natural Event composting wheelie bin toilets housed in fold out glory. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, more expensive than pallet racking.

Eco-Cubby update

The drawings and final model for the eco-cubby project we are doing with Jon Pye Architects. See below for early sketch models. Click here for more. Click here for eco-cubby webiste.

Cardboard study model

 

 A study model for a 2 storey extension at the rear of a semi-detached house.

Preston Shed. The Polished Presentation

   

 

The project extends the strategy and ingenuity of the north suburban frontier spirit. Here, since the war, the aspirational impulse of everyman has intersected with the homogeny of the built environment. This small set of external structures can be understood as an exercise in the efficient re-use of found and salvaged materials. Recycled palings have been used to over-clad an existing fence, scavenged floor beams support the shed’s grass roof and it’s cladding is a combination of salvaged fence palings, futon base slats, corrugated iron and fibreglass. Consisting of a tool shed, bike and bin enclosure, chicken coop and fence, it reintroduces elements commonly found in the Australian backyard. Tectonically the project is a single shed unfurled like a Swiss roll with one part near the side gate, the other at the far corner of the yard and a long fence spread between. The design is conceived as a multi-functional edge, in which provision of a place for everything expands the available space in this modest backyard. The shed’s grassy roof attempts to mediate between backyard and the tree lined horizon beyond. From the house windows the elevated meadow provides a planted foreground to the Kodak factory rising from above the horizon.

Expression of Interest Submission for new Faculty Building at Melbourne University

As some of you will know, we have recently put together a submission for the new Architecture, Building and Planning faculty building at Melbourne University.
Our application was not selected to go to the next round.
Here it is anyway.
To see the short list click here