Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 106 October i Houses

An all-white extension is not the first thing one imagines finding on a corner block in a leafy Lower North Shore suburb of Sydney with huge street trees, wide grassed verges and lowset red brick houses. The fences are generally knee-height, the front gardens mossy and unused, and the rear gardens hidden. Even on this site, a high paling fence and solid garage door at the back of the side boundary mean there are few clues to what anything that may have occurred behind, in the sanctum of the rear garden. The existing house, built in the 1950s, is solid, discreet and well crafted, with red brick arranged in careful patterns. A meandering garden path leads to a new front door, and only then can one see signs of a…

The sunbelt of Queensland’s Gold Coast forms Australia’s sixth-largest city. While glittery apartment towers rise from the dunes and distended “blingy” mansions sit pompously on canals, the most noteworthy architectural endeavours of recent times hark back to the inventiveness of an earlier era; to mid-century modernism and to the informal simplicity of fibro beach shacks. The heritage of the city and its neighbourhoods in these terms is unquestioned, but rapidly disappearing as the drive to maximize property values erases these charismatic yet unaffected examples of beachside buildings. It is inspiring to find in the Francis Street House, located metres from the open surf, such authentic modesty and restraint in the design for a large family home. Architect Matthew Eagle grew up on the Gold Coast. His professional practice has transformed…

If you had to play the game of picking one word to sum up Marie Christine Dorner’s designs, cosmopolitan would be one of the first to spring to mind. The French designer, whose work ranges from jewellery and small objects to furniture, interiors and, as she puts it, “almost architecture,” has brought her distinctive “French touch” to a dizzying map of locations including Japan, Morocco, Malaysia, London, the Philippines and Azerbaijan. Marie Christine describes her so-called “French touch” as radical concepts combined with an emphasis on materiality and details, brought to life by access to the savoir faire in time-honoured crafts of local French artisans. This nuanced design approach is evident in the understated elegance of MCD, Marie Christine’s eponymous sofa for Ligne Roset. The chair features eight different foams…

If you follow social media for architectural inspiration this house by Vokes and Peters may seem familiar. From April 2012 until May 2014, Caroline Novinc, mother of four young boys, publicly shared the process of house-building on her blog West End Cottage: Worker’s Cottage Renovation. The outcome is an informative record of insight into the process of building a family home with an architect. And although the blogged story seems to have concluded, life goes on in the micro-chronicles of Instagram to the two-thousand-plus followers of @westendcottage. In an interesting story-based parallel, the architects themselves employ a process that they call the “narrative brief,” through which they enquire deeply into client expectations. This story sharing provides the imaginative foundation from which the architects can refine and detail an elegant economy…

One could be forgiven for assuming that the residents of May Grove house like their privacy. Sweeping in off the corner of a busy residential street in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, the dwelling challenges the masked frontages of the properties that soldier alongside. Sited among a series of single-storey twentieth-century bungalows, May Grove reinterprets its site conditions and explores alternative streetscape opportunities. The site, previously occupied by a 1930s red brick cottage, was originally fronted by a high fence in a style similar to those that still flank the latest addition to the street. Faced with this context, Jackson Clements Burrows Architects sought to reconsider and redefine the ways in which the new house might challenge the existing street facade. The building’s ground-level frontage was born out of…

To describe this new house, designed by Matt Gibson Architecture and Design and located in bayside Melbourne, is an exercise in the careful use of adjectives and qualification. For to speak solely of the materials as we see them from the street – stacked stone, blackbutt timber, black steel, glass, lots of concrete – is to risk conjuring mental images of something massive, monolithic, possibly austere. But in the hands of this practice, these materials have been used to achieve a very different effect, as you can surely see in the photographs accompanying this review. The timber-and-stone-clad lower level recedes among the shadows of the front garden; this part of the facade is wonderfully textured, with the black-steel-shrouded entry providing a central focal point. But what really catches the eyes…

On the Paris leg of the 2015 Dulux Study Tour (a coveted travelling scholarship for emerging architects that also explored Tokyo and London), I visited Maison La Roche. Designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret (1923–1925) for Swiss banker Raoul La Roche, it is now the home of Fondation Le Corbusier. My visit sparked reflection on the work of the early modernist. My first impression of the former home and private gallery wasn’t as positive as I’d anticipated. The building’s plan makes it near impossible to manage thermally and as it was unfurnished and without the art collection for which it was built, I found it hard to imagine the space being comfortably inhabited. The ramp in the gallery wing is so steep that it is almost unusable,…

01 Superhouse: Architecture and interiors beyond the everyday On until 29 November 2015 Check out an exhibition by Karen McCartney that explores local and international examples of a “superhouse.” The criteria for what makes a house “super” is highly personal – so this exhibition, held at the Museum of Sydney, provokes thought about what “superhouse” means to you. sydneylivingmuseums.com.au 02 Robin Boyd Foundation open days 8 and 28 November 2015 The Robin Boyd Foundation is hosting a series of open days that showcase award-winning residential work. On Sunday 8 November, you’ll be able to visit Villa Marittima at St Andrews Beach, Victoria by Robin Williams Architect, a project that received a commendation in the New House Over 200 Square Metres category in the 2015 Houses Awards. On Saturday 28 November,…

Camino House is a small project exploring big ideas. With a background in public architecture, Caroline Hickey of Bosske Architecture considers urban notions of connection and scale on a site of just two hundred and fifty square metres. As a challenging, suburban infill project located in the inner-northern Perth suburb of Mount Lawley, the need for a small and well-formed space pushed the architects to create a generous house with an outward focus, firmly anchored in the tapestry of its suburban context. Federation and Colonial-style houses are typical of Mount Lawley, though in certain pockets of the suburb, the largely Italian migrant population of the 1960s and 70s remodelled many of these houses, overlaying a distinctly European aesthetic. This demographic also contributed a form of suburban agriculture, integrating vegetable gardens,…

01 Markilux 6000 awning Offering a variety of design options, the Markilux 6000 awning (pictured is Uber Cocoon) features unique folding-arm technology. The elbow joints have a tear-resistant bionic tendon made from high-tech fibres for optimum power transference to the front profile and virtually noise-free operation. markilux.com.au 02 Swing Me lounge chair Part of the Swingrest collection designed by Daniel Pouzet, the Swing Me lounge chair has a wraparound backrest that provides an inviting, cosy spot to relax. With an aluminium frame, the Swing Me lounge chair comes in natural or chalk fibre and can be hung from a single point for a rotating swing experience, or from two points for a back-and-forth movement. dedon.de cultdesign.com.au 03 Library Chair Originally designed by Børge Mogensen in 1957, Stellar Works’ Library Chair…

What is at the heart of making a good house? Perhaps the act of “making” itself. The Sawmill House by Archier has been a journey, one between places and brothers, between intent and agility. Let’s travel up and around the Hume Highway to Yackandandah, in Victoria’s north-east region. The area is a mix of agriculture, forestry, tourism, food and wine; its heyday was the gold rush. Just on the edge of the modest town is its old sawmill, now a local artist’s compound and the site for a young family’s home. The Sawmill House is a collaboration between its architects and owner-artist Benjamin Gilbert, whose medium is often large sculpture. Ben is brother to Chris Gilbert, one of the three young designers who make up the emerging architecture practice. Both…

01 Could you tell us a little about your family and your background? We are a family of six, with four boys aged eleven years and under. We bought our worker’s cottage in inner-city Brisbane back in 2007. Remarkably, the house, which was built pre-1927, was still in its original condition. 02 Why did you decide to engage an architect? We decided that if we were going to throw a large sum of money into a renovation, we wanted to get it right. There were a number of site-specific building and design regulations and constraints to consider, and working with an architect with local knowledge and experience definitely helped us work through these complex issues. 03 How did you discover Vokes and Peters? While searching for a suitable architect, I…

Sydney’s Balmoral is an exceptionally beautiful place from which to view the beaches and bay waters, and to feel enclosed by the bush-covered headlands that shape the entry to Middle Harbour. Across the water from Balmoral, in the distance and marking the southern tip of a portion of Sydney Harbour National Park, is the Grotto Point Lighthouse. In a place where views are highly sought after and valued, houses are typically orientated to capture the view for themselves, presenting to the street only a closed wall, garage door and landscaping. But Balmoral House by architects Clinton Murray and Polly Harbison is different. In a gesture that is contrary to the norm, the home’s main living spaces span over an outdoor garden and sculpture courtyard in the middle of the site.…

01 Sparkling curtains Sparkling is a vibrant patterned curtain designed by Aggebo and Henriksen. Along with Drizzle and Drill, the other designs in the collection, Sparkling explores how curtains can create atmosphere in a room and complement each other to achieve varied expressions. kvadratmaharam.com 02 Partridge Chair Designers Nicholas Karlovasitis and Sarah Gibson have balanced the warmth of timber with an industrial aesthetic to create the Partridge Chair. The curved shapes and linear form of the backrest are a nod to Art Deco styling. designbythem.com 03 Two Colour Tea Set With both round and square edges, this delightful handmade tea set features two different naturally occurring colours of Zisha clay – hence its name, Two Colour Tea Set. The simple design highlights the colours of the clay. spinceramics.com 04 Pro…

There is a real sense of theatre in this elegant apartment. Not in the sense of showiness; rather, it is in the very carefully executed mise en scène of each space. With that in mind, it’s not surprising to learn that both architect Steven Whiting and designer Carole Whiting have a background in art direction and film. There is a lightness of touch in the way materials are layered and, a focus on the temporal and visceral aspects of the site – a captivating vista of grass, sea and sky, gazing out to Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. The home has also benefited from a personal connection between designer and client: it is the seventh project that Steven and Carole have collaborated on with clients Bruce and Margaret. Their previous work…

01 Series 618 cavity sliding door Clean, bold and architecturally inspired, the Series 618 cavity sliding door is part of Architectural Window Systems’ Vantage range. It can be installed with a flush sill for a seamless transition between inside and out. The panels can slide straight back into a cavity, leaving an uninterrupted opening, and the system can be reconfigured into a corner door. awsaustralia.com.au 02 New blind colours Verosol has expanded its Originals Collection fabrics to offer a vibrant palette of thirty-six colours. Featuring a metallized backing, fabrics in the Originals Collection provide outstanding heat and light reflection to create a comfortable interior environment and help save energy. verosol.com.au 03 Wire-free motorized blinds Somfy’s wire-free motors enable homeowners to have motorized interior blinds without the need for an electrical…

Project Zero started with a proposition that soon evolved into a profoundly collaborative process. The clients, a couple who run a construction and property firm, were searching for an old home to renovate for their young family to live in. The idea was to use the project as a benchmark for future developments that showcased a sustainable re-use agenda and would help to establish the firm as an expert in zero energy consumption. (The Zero moniker is a pun on the firm’s energy-consumption aspirations as well as the project’s inaugural status.) As with many homebuyers in Brisbane, the romance of the old Queenslander had taken hold, and their search had been focused on colonial homes in inner suburbs. Financial and climatic realities eventually undermined the dream. As architect and BVN…

It’s possible to fall in love with a house before you’ve had time to work out what you really want to do with it. A timber cottage with an adjacent stable building in inner-city Sydney is a rarity, so when the current owners saw Hurlstone House for sale back in 2006, they jumped at the chance. They then set out to discover what their new house might be – by living in it, thinking about it and then asking specialist advice on how to realize their ideas. The house’s recent history was a fairly typical one for an inner-city timber building. After being threatened with demolition by developers in the 1990s, the dwelling was spared and lovingly restored. With the house saved from demolition (ensuring the retention of an important…

Is an article about a townhouse that is almost fifty years old, situated in a well-to-do suburb of Melbourne, about history? Should it be instructive? Or is it simply nostalgic? I visited this Grange Road Townhouse – the largest of four in a block that seems fairly intact – knowing that it was a Merchant Builders development, designed by Graeme Gunn in 1967. I knew that the landscape architecture, at least for this townhouse, was by the great Ellis Stones, and that this landscaping had featured in a number of books about his work. What I did not know was that the residence was built for one of Merchant Builders’s founding directors, John Ridge, and his then wife Molly (the house is now the home of art dealer Sophie Gannon…