Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 110 June 2016 i Houses

It has already been eleven years since we created Kelso House, the first house Architects EAT completed as a registered architectural practice. It was also my first home. My wife Evelyn and I bought the original house in Melbourne’s Richmond in the winter of 2003. It was post auction, and no-one wanted the house. We moved into the dilapidated home almost straight away, after slapping a dozen ten-litre cans of paint onto the walls. Even now, Architects EAT co-director Eid Goh still recalls that the living room floor was so skewed, a pen would just roll down to one corner over the carpeted floor. We lived there for a year, adopted Oli the cat (who came with the house), and one night Evelyn fell through the rotten kitchen floor. I…

Without doubt, Australia’s coastline is one of the most spectacular in the world. It’s a diverse, unique landscape of uncommon beauty, from our wildest bays to the urbanized shores of Sydney Harbour. Yet few coastal idylls come close to Wategos Beach in far northern New South Wales. This small wedge of paradise – cupped leeward under the spiny Cape Byron ridgeline, wrapped by a lush subtropical reserve and facing due north to the Rubenesque-sweep of Byron Bay – offers that all-too-rare “where rainforest meets sea” moment. The sky, sea and bush encircle homes, a handful of small-scale hotels and one of the most heroic human-made structures in the country, the Cape Byron Lighthouse. Creating a new building in such an environment comes, surely, with an irrefutable mandate: that it speak…

When contemplating domestic renovations many clients feel that the solution lies in the addition of a series of new spaces. However, the canny ones and their architects realize that sometimes the smallest shifts can create the greatest change. It’s the Pareto principle, more commonly known as the 80/20 rule, which holds that 80 percent of effect results from 20 percent of causes. Small moves have a hugely transformative effect. When Kerry McIlroy and Sue Cole approached architect Stephen de Jersey they had already spent years thinking about the project. They had previously commissioned the design of a more extensive renovation, which included a new bathroom and additional living and bedroom spaces. However, financial constraints reined in their ambitions, and the final brief was reduced to a new bathroom and covered…

For Christopher Polly Architect’s clients Warrick and Kate, it was a recent online article about Elliott Ripper House that convinced them to engage the Sydney-based architect. His highly regarded project may be close to five years old now, but it’s still widely discussed and critiqued, having set a kind of unofficial benchmark for easy, modern Australian living. While they didn’t want a mere copy of Christopher’s past work, they did ask him to inject a comparable sense of programming vigour, spatial efficiency and aesthetic finesse into their own home. The couple’s Federation house in Sydney’s inner-western suburb of Petersham is typical of the area’s dwellings, bar the occasional oversized renovation and block of units. It has plenty of character and charm, but it suffered from a lack of space and…

01 Could you tell us a little about your family and your background? My husband Jesse and I have three boys. Sam is six, Ollie is three and Archie is sixteen months. We also have two dogs. I’m from Newcastle and Jesse is from Adelaide. We met in a restaurant in Newcastle and after that, things moved quite fast. We bought a pizzeria in Newscastle together with two friends – we turned it into a restaurant and it ended up doing really well, so that was our big break! When we sold the restaurant, we travelled overseas and spent six months driving a van around Europe. We fell in love with the food, architecture, design and art. We were away for two years and when we got back, we found…

There is something to be said for local knowledge. “Up on the ridgeline, it’s definitely a sort of microclimate,” says Justin Noxon, a director at Noxon Giffen, as he surveys the site of Main Ridge House. It is a sloping block typical of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, lightly treed around the edges and descending from a curve in the road to finish at a bucolic pond and wetlands. Having spent much of his youth holidaying in the neighbourhood and, more recently, having worked on several projects nearby, Justin brought to the project a thorough understanding of the region’s particular climatic conditions and how to work with them. “Running the house across the site might seem counter to some of the usual sustainable design considerations, but it means that every single habitable…

01 2016 Houses Awards announcement 22 July 2016 Join hundreds of your peers to celebrate the winners and commended projects in the 2016 Houses Awards, to be announced at a presentation party at Sydney’s Doltone House Hyde Park. Book your tickets now. housesawards.com.au 02 2016 Intergrain Timber Vision Awards Entries close 26 June 2016 This awards program celebrates the progessive ways in which timber is used. There are categories for Residential Interior, Residential Exterior, Commercial Interior, Commercial Exterior, Landscape and Young Architect. Each category winner receives $2,000 in prize money, 100 litres of Intergrain product and national exposure in Architecture Australia. In addition, this year a $15,000 Travel Bursary will be awarded to an architectural or landscape architectural firm for innovative use of timber over the last ten years. Seen…

01 Douglas fir timber flooring This timber flooring can be specified in extra-long lengths to avoid end joints, allowing the creation of an expansive, continuous floor plane. Nobbs Radford Architects also likes the colouring of the timber – it is neutral and doesn’t dominate the space, as seen here at the Glebe House. dinesen.com 02 Modular lighting The practice prefers to use light fittings that aren’t obvious and can be integrated into the architecture, as seen here at the Birchgrove House. jsblighting.com.au 03 L’Invisibile door system This door system sits perfectly flush with the wall and eliminates the need for visible jambs, architraves or exposed hinges as seen here at the Glebe House. The L’Invisibile door system makes it easy to fully customize an area. edilart.com.au 04 Japanese timber baths…

Vibrant creative partnerships are a significant model within the design realm. Charles and Ray Eames come to mind immediately, or perhaps Fernando and Humberto Campana. The richness of this model emerges from the intersection of two varied streams of experience and is kept alight by an active feedback loop between the pair. Lisa Vincitorio and Laelie Berzon see their working relationship as the heart of their business. Working together in the same furniture outlet years ago, they discovered complementary creative approaches and the idea for their partnership emerged. Something Beginning With (SBW) was chosen as a name that hints at play, but also open endings, allowing them to “… build the brand in whatever way we want.” Both women trained in design at Melbourne’s RMIT University, but Lisa graduated with…

01 Savannah coffee table Erik Jørgensen has collaborated with Swedish designer Monica Förster to create the Savannah coffee table, the latest addition to the Savannah furniture range. The coffee table echoes the slender wooden framework of the sofas and chairs in the range. It has slightly splayed legs that support a solid oval-shaped top. cultdesign.com.au 02 Mad King armchair Designed by Marcel Wanders, the Mad King armchair has large, soft dimensions, slender feet and a striking decorative presence, with an optional tray in Spessart oak, cenere oak or black elm. The Mad range also includes occasional tables, a dining table and lounges. poliform.com.au 03 Ned stool The Ned stool, designed and manufactured in Australia by Huw McConachy, features a low-profile back. It is constructed from hoop pine ply with American…

Vokes and Peters’ Central Avenue house, located in the Brisbane enclave of St Lucia, continues an intriguing narrative in the practice’s growing catalogue of domestic architecture. In this iteration, the historic cottage is notably absent, replaced instead by the roles of landscape, street and city to which the new building responds with cordial intelligence, restraint and exuberance. The avenue on which the house is sited aligns to an elevated ridge connecting the suburban landmarks of a primary school and two churches with a string of detached dwellings. The convivial scenes of school run and church gathering have an almost cinematic attraction, yet, as the architects observe, new homes mostly abandon opportunity for neighbourly exchange in favour of ridge-top views of the city. Central Avenue works hard to ameliorate such imbalance.…

When we think of the Australian landscape, we tend to imagine scenes of desert expanses, white sandy beaches or national architectural icons, not the ubiquitous suburban brick-veneer house. The suburb, as it is reflected in our art and culture, has, for most of our history, been largely ignored by some and vehemently derided by others. Architect Robin Boyd wrote in his bestselling book The Australian Ugliness (1960), “there is little or no collective pride in the suburb, only a huge collection of individual prides.” This “collection of individual prides” was one of artist Howard Arkley’s greatest influences and the subject of his best-known works. A retrospective of Arkley’s work was recently on show at the TarraWarra Museum of Art in the regional Victorian town of Healesville. The exhibition also displayed…

When I visit houses and apartments for review, I usually ask myself, the designers and the clients, “What was the key factor in the success of the project?” You might assume that the first response would be “A large budget,” or that the success would be attributed to the experience and skill of the designer, or even to the drive and passion of the client. Despite these important contributors, the most frequent answer is something that requires little money but a lot of commitment – dialogue. The Upsilon House by MCK Architecture and Interiors is a clear example of a home created out of conversation and collaboration between architect and client. The clients – who run a successful fashion business – wanted “out of strata” and were keen to find…

01 Victoria Compact Speed Oven The Victoria Compact Speed Oven combines circulating microwave power with traditional convection functions to do just what its name suggests – it dramatically reduces cooking times. The oven is forty-five centimetres high and is designed to be installed in a bank of appliances, integrating seamlessly with other models in the range. smeg.com.au 02 Alfred Umbrella Stand Part of the Alfred range of floor storage accessories designed by Seaton Mckeon, the cute Alfred Umbrella Stand features a central handle for easy manoeuvring and an inbuilt shelf to accommodate large and small umbrellas. It is available in powdercoated yellow, white or black. designbythem.com.au 03 Geo Origami cushion covers The Geo Origami cushion covers by designer Mika Barr feature recognizable architectural patterns formed in the material itself. The…

The tension between historically protected streetscapes and workable contemporary architecture creates a common enough design dilemma in our cities. In Brisbane’s West End, there’s another part of the equation at work – the almost tribal allegiance to the place and the community held dear by so many of its residents. It seems that once you’ve lived there, you don’t want to leave, and while a new gentrification is fast changing the texture of the suburb in certain pockets from humble and multicultural to grand and bland, there is still a treasuring of the area’s authentic roots and a strong allegiance to the concept of community. Translated (or mistranslated) into building codes, the result is sometimes a misplaced nostalgia for less amenable living patterns. When architect Richard Kirk was commissioned to…

When Jesse and Vanessa first bought their house in Melbourne’s Westgarth, it was in need of attention. Built in the late 1800s, the home was rich in history but showing its age. After living in the house in its original shape for three years, the couple decided to seek out an architect who was aligned with their vision, to design an extension at the rear of the existing dwelling. After some searching, the couple met Phil Snowdon of Ola Studio, who understood their aesthetic and style. At the time of designing the Garth House extension, Jesse and Vanessa weren’t short of things to keep them busy – Jesse is a successful chef, and together they are business owners and operators as well as parents. They were eager to maintain as…

In the eastern Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo, Shaun Lockyer Architects has created a bold expression of home for a young family. Formerly occupied by a lowset cavity brick and stucco house that sprawled awkwardly, the site now hosts a design that determinedly defines a new quality for the street corner and deliberately shapes a set of relationships between the house, its site and the wider setting. Boosting the site’s natural elevation, the Buena Vista house takes in an arc of views from east to west, most magnetically toward the city centre and the mountains. Shaun Lockyer Architects is a practice that is energetically focused on drawing out client expectations and interpreting these into memorable, efficient, contemporary architecture. The design for the Buena Vista house was founded on the surety of…

Stepping into the living room of the Butterfly House on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, the waters of Port Phillip Bay are revealed through triangulated picture glass windows. Designed in 1955 by Chancellor and Patrick, the house exhibits one of the key tenets of the International Style – the desire for infinite space. This does not refer to floor size (unlike the obesity of much contemporary Australian housing) but rather the designer’s skill in dissolving the north wall plane so the view lines flow unimpeded from inside to outside, providing a direct connection with the water, horizon and sky. What is the firsthand experience of the Butterfly House? Artist Bin Dixon-Ward’s first memories of the house include weekend barbecues, days spent at the beach and chores in her grandparents’ garden. These childhood…