Conceptual inspiration for a house centred around a galley was drawn from the experience of our client’s life when they lived on board a narrowboat in the UK. Our clients loved that every aspect of their boat was highly considered, every space utilised.
This project speaks to two types of home-coming. The macro, coming home from living overseas with a broader perspective and experiences, and the micro, the daily rhythms and flow of coming and going from home.
Environmental consciousness starts with an understanding that the easier it is ride, the more we do it and this home is planned specifically to facilitate this. Ensuring every centimetre is utilised, avoids excess. Reuse of original building fabric minimises waste. New materials were selected for longevity and recyclability. Active and passive measures include solar and rainwater harvesting, considered orientation and ventilation.
This home is designed to expressly connect with our community through carefully graduated external and internal spaces. The design supports everyday interactions with the neighbourhood as a reminder that we are part of a greater whole, encouraging us to look outside of ourselves.
Topology acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which our studio stands. The Yalukit Willam people of the Boon Wurrung and the wider Kulin Nation. Each of us pay our deepest respects to the elders past, present and those emerging. We pledge our commitment in caring for this land and its first people. We promise to respect its history and continue to speak the truth.
On the lands of the Boon Wurrung
This renovated and extended Victorian reconciles a desire to preserve and celebrate heritage homes with the aspiration for strong contemporary design. The design acknowledges the multiple contexts of the site: its Victorian heritage, its coastal location and its position on one of Melbourne’s most prominent and iconic promenades.
The principal facade and roof of the existing house have been maintained and restored, while behind them a new sculptural addition unfolds. The relationship between the existing house and the new built work has been inspired by three artworks that each express the horizon: Jorn Utzon’s sketch of storm clouds over the sea, and On the Beach and Seated Bather by Pablo Picasso. These artworks depict figures in front of the horizon and also evoke a sense of looking over a sea wall towards the horizon. From within the addition, the owners have the impression that they are looking over the existing roofscape to the sea and horizon beyond, while passers-by view the house from the beach as an architectural composition of billowing, cloud-like forms above a horizon populated by the rounded and sometimes biomorphic forms of the rooftop chimneys.
On the rear facade, asymmetrical openings reflect the irregularity found on the rear facades of adjacent Victorian houses. Inside, the visual connection to the bay is reinforced by the placement of the pool. Living spaces are located adjacent to the pool terrace and embrace the view, yet also respond to the challenges of preserving privacy and providing wind and noise protection in an exposed coastal location.
On the lands of the Wurundjeri
This renovated and extended Victorian reconciles a desire to preserve and celebrate heritage homes with the aspiration for strong contemporary design. The design acknowledges the multiple contexts of the site: its Victorian heritage, its coastal location and its position on one of Melbourne’s most prominent and iconic promenades.
The principal facade and roof of the existing house have been maintained and restored, while behind them a new sculptural addition unfolds. The relationship between the existing house and the new built work has been inspired by three artworks that each express the horizon: Jorn Utzon’s sketch of storm clouds over the sea, and On the Beach and Seated Bather by Pablo Picasso. These artworks depict figures in front of the horizon and also evoke a sense of looking over a sea wall towards the horizon. From within the addition, the owners have the impression that they are looking over the existing roofscape to the sea and horizon beyond, while passers-by view the house from the beach as an architectural composition of billowing, cloud-like forms above a horizon populated by the rounded and sometimes biomorphic forms of the rooftop chimneys.
On the rear facade, asymmetrical openings reflect the irregularity found on the rear facades of adjacent Victorian houses. Inside, the visual connection to the bay is reinforced by the placement of the pool. Living spaces are located adjacent to the pool terrace and embrace the view, yet also respond to the challenges of preserving privacy and providing wind and noise protection in an exposed coastal location.
On the lands of the Bunurong Boon
Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
Our Client’s Victorian terrace overlooks Nairm, Port Phillip Bay. Some mornings the bay is still, the lilac hue punctuated by bright jerseys of cyclists and lamps along the pier. This is Beaconsfield Parade at its most peaceful before the promenade fills with people strolling, paddling and driving. Later the wind rises, throwing waves onto the pier and foam onto the shore. At night stillness returns and lights of the shipping lane guide ships through the rip.
The brief was to reorganise the plan to improve light and outlook to the garden whilst providing a sense of entry from the lane. A single-storey, north-east facing pavilion is inserted below the existing building between the brick walls of the neighbouring terraces.
A stepped masonry wall forms a kind of lantern adjacent to an existing brick wall. Inside the plywood ceiling sweeps up, enabling light to fall deep into the floor plate. The volume created provides a high gallery wall whilst the rest of the addition is level with the adjacent boundary walls.
The lantern is the only part of the addition visible from outside of the property. This discrete intervention has improved the environmental performance of the home without compromising the heritage values of the place. The lantern is a welcoming engagement with the lane and surrounding built landscape.
Commendation – Residential Dwelling: Alteration/Addition
The Design & Development Awards, City of Port Phillip, 2022
