Innehållsförteckning för Issue 149 December 2022 från Houses

As summer begins and the end of the year approaches, many of you might be awaiting a change in pace and eager to assume a recumbent pose, like our cover stars. Flux is a recurrent thread in this issue of Houses, with homes that encourage their owners to delight in seasonal change, and the ebb and flow of friends and family. Office Mi–Ji’s AB House in Barwon Heads (page 94) employs layered rooms and twists in the plan to create an intriguing beach house that oscillates between privacy and connection. In Brisbane, John Ellway Architect’s Hopscotch House (page 26) registers daily and seasonal change like a sundial, spurring its occupants to move around the house depending on fluctuations in sun, breezes and seasons. The end result is, Dirk Yates writes,…

Alexa Kempton Can you start by telling me a bit about yourself? Sarah I used to work in fashion. It was great, but very unsustainable, and over time I realized that being environmentally responsible was more important to me than looking good. I love the idea of things being aesthetically pleasing, so then I studied interior design, and I now run a design and decoration business. I also love gardening – I always have loved it. AK When did you decide to engage an architect? S My husband Evan and I bought this place in 2014. It’s a Federation-era house, but it had all these strange add-ons at the back, and there was a big backyard that was completely disconnected from the house. We lived in it for a few…

This was one of those rare, practice-defining projects that doesn’t so much land in your lap, but slowly takes you over. It was the first big house for our studio, then called Fox Johnston, and it probably took the longest time of all our houses to complete. Not because it was our most complex, but because co-director Emili Fox and I were young and took our time with it, and because the brief evolved so significantly. We started work on Chinaman’s Beach House (see Houses 84) in 2006 and finished in 2011. Initially, the brief was to find an access point for a vacant site on a very steep block in Mosman, beside a public walkway named the Barney Kearns Steps. Our client had purchased three blocks, one of which…

Anthony Basheer Photographer Anthony’s work explores the quieter, experiential moments found in buildings. He is drawn to architecture that stirs emotion through scale, form, colour and texture. Anthony has developed a portfolio of projects that are not clean nor simple, but rather emotive, personal, layered and considered. Sheona Thomson Writer Sheona is a Brisbane-based design educator and course coordinator in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at QUT. A regular contributor to Architecture Media titles, she values the opportunity to report on local designers’ inspiring work. Chloe Naughton Writer Chloe cut her teeth practising architecture in her North Queensland home town of Bowen. She has since lived and practised architecture in Brisbane and Lima, Peru. She is now based in Sydney, where she…

01 Beaumaris Modern 2 by Fiona Austin and Simon Reeves (Melbourne Books, 2022) Melbourne’s bayside suburb of Beaumaris has changed a lot since the 1950s and ’60s, when dirt roads and sandy tracks weaved between untouched bush and the avant-garde homes of the architects and artists who flocked there in search of an alternative to the usual subdivision. Today, as land values have skyrocketed, many of the experimental, modernist homes that were built in the mid-twentieth century have been demolished, replaced by generic new builds. This follow-up to 2018’s Beaumaris Modern continues the work of documenting the homes that have survived the waves of development, acting as a pointed reminder of what first attracted people to the suburb. The new book brings 17 additional surviving houses “out from…

In what seems like merely a moment of inattention, a crowd of large residential developments has emerged from the complex fabric of Collingwood in Melbourne’s inner north. Within this changing streetscape, Bedford Street – designed by DKO with interiors by Design Office, and built by Milieu Property – has, comparatively, an almost discreet street presence. The block of 20 apartments employs the stylistic mode that has become the default for developments in areas littered with formerly light-industrial building stock: a heavy material (typically brick, or at least its semblance) arranged to echo the vestigial classicism and robust forms of storehouses, factories and similar building types. At Bedford Street, this is pursued with adept sobriety and refinement. The ordered patterns of curtain walling at its upper storeys lend it a confident…

1 Entry2 Carport3 Courtyard4 Kitchen5 Dining6 Living7 Lounge box8 Library/guest room9 Bedroom10 Pool For more than two decades, Brian Steendyk has been at the helm of architecture and design studio Steendijk, working on diverse challenges and applying his interdisciplinary skill set to product, exhibition and interior design as well as residential and commercial architecture. Formatively, Brian undertook a master of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in the mid-1990s, which explains the modernist tendencies found in his work. He speaks fondly of his time at Crown Hall with his two thesis advisors, Joseph Fujikawa and the “poet of structure” Myron Goldsmith. Both were disciple-collaborators of German émigré and renowned modernist Mies van der Rohe, IIT’s architecture director from 1938 to 1958. These men were thoughtful and disciplined practitioner-educators…

When designing a home, the architect-client relationship can be complex and delicate, but also immensely rewarding. Its success relies on an initial trust on both sides, a dedication from the architect to understanding the specific values of the client, and a collaborative process between both parties that identifies the shared values they wish to instil in the design. With no pre-defined or off-the-shelf outcome, a values-driven design process can make anything possible; therefore, that process is one of collectively finding the right thing to do, both for the client and for the site. By going on this journey together, the architect and the client have a shared responsibility for the outcome. It’s clear that this is a process that Cat Downie and Dan North of Downie North have created with…

Find more residential products: selector.com and productnews.com.au 01 Stainless steel tapware Stainless steel is an incredibly durable and corrosion-resistant material. Vola creates beautiful forms from stainless steel, with textures that echo those of the natural world and manufacturing methods that minimize environmental impact.en.vola.com 02 Sanctuary DC ceiling fan The Sanctuary DC ceiling fan’s wide-reaching blade span and powerful airflow make it ideal for large, open living areas and covered outdoor spaces. Its three sculpted solid timber blades make it a stylish yet commanding feature that supports natural ventilation.universalfans.com.au 03 Climate Active initiative This opt-in program allows customers to specify and procure any clay brick made in Brickworks’ Australian facilities as a certified carbon-neutral product. An audit verified by Energetics enables Brickworks to undertake a lifecycle analysis and purchase carbon credits.brickworks.com.au…

Some years ago, I found a recollection from artist Rachel Whiteread, in which she described a lengthy process of making a piece of work resembling the safe, black, furry, childhood hiding space inside a wardrobe. She was seeking to abstract that experience through sculpture. Rachel is an artist whom you might categorize as a “seeker.” Rather than polish the same stone, seemingly making the same piece over and over in different ways, she seeks continually, through different materials, scales and contexts, to express abstract ideas, relationships and thoughts that hover – sometimes for years – just out of reach. Elliat Rich is also a seeker. While Rachel pursued the representation of a sensual, bodily experience, Elliat seeks to express and spark relations. Human to human, human to other-than-human, and, perhaps…

As someone who spent much of their childhood in an English seaside town, my recollections of the beach are as much of bracing sea winds and dishearteningly consistent rain as they are of sun-warmed skin and a refreshing ocean swim. One constant was a contemplative beach walk, fossicking for stones and glimpses of the pearlescent linings hiding beneath the tough and impervious seashell. Regardless of the lamentable British weather, the beach was synonymous with a less hurried pace. The beachside town of Barwon Heads, on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, likewise fosters a leisurely pace. It is a place that the owners of AB House have long had an attachment to. After searching for a house in the area for some time, they purchased a property near the golf course. They planned…