The Love Shack is a built prototype for material reuse, design for disassembly (DfD), and small-scale functionality. Its conceptual framework is governed by resource efficiency and experimentation. The core philosophy centers on minimizing waste while maximizing lifespan in an effort to reframe predetermined conceptions of how salvaged materials should look and perform.

Functionally, the studio space has the ability to transform from a bedroom to a living room to an office space, providing a flexible extension to the existing family home. The facade facing the existing house includes operable solid doors that allow for privacy when closed and, when open, allow the pavilion to feel like an extension of the backyard. Highlight windows provide natural ventilation year-round and even indirect light throughout the day.

Due to the rigid modular grid imposed on the triangular corner site, we were left with an irregularly shaped space where we chose to locate the bathroom. The bathroom features a trapezoidal-shaped column centred in the room to house all the services and create programmatic delineation within a confined space. The design approach centered on waste minimization includes material re-use, DfD; modularity, minimising material types, and dry fixing details. The 1.2m grid and 2.1m datum were derived from standard sheet sizes defined in the base logic of the plan and elevations.

La entrada Love Shack Multi-Functional Studio se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

On 100 acres of eucalypt forest at top of 60 m cliffs, 430 m above sea level. Spectacular views over the Hunter Valley wine region. No public services. Extreme bushfire danger. Electricity from photovoltaic solar array. Water from roof to corrugated steel tanks. Water heating from solar panels. ‘Brown’ water to septic tank. ‘Grey’ water irrigates a walled ‘Permaculture’ garden. Wood stoves for heating and baking. Mobile phone and fax. Three buildings – house, garages, stables. House parallel to the cliffs faces 33˚ east of solar north – winter morning sun, cooling summer sea breezes. Walled garden orientated on the points of the compass. Thus generated the courtyard. House, corrugated steel ‘fly roof’ on standard steel agricultural shed frames – large low cost area for rainwater and shade. Beneath are two habitable modules with curved steel sub-roofs either side of an open breezeway with retained existing recycled brick fireplace. Concrete block walls for thermal mass insulated and clad on outside with mini-orb steel and eucalypt planks. Eaves exclude summer sun, winter sun admitted to thermal mass of concrete floors and yellow curved thermal wall. Perforated mini-orb steel shutters for bushfire protection and sun shade. Standard steel shed frames to garages and stables with roof and walls of corrugated steel. Bloodlines from Australian rural sheds. Low cost. Owner built.

La entrada Autonomous House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The room feels slightly too small, not uncomfortably so, but still there is something about the space.

The combination of the threshold head height, the steps down into the space and the slope of the ceiling give a vague feeling of pitching forward, an insinuated disquiet.

The internal finishes are neutral, timber below white painted plaster. Curiosity is focused, everything leads to the window that pushes forward into space above the garden.

Within the bay window, right at the edge, there is a place to stop, at the scale of a person, or to share intimately with another. It is a place to notice life in the canopy, the scallop pattern of the crashing waves on sand in the bay, movement on the ridge, or the whoop of approaching guests.

Text provided by the architects.

La entrada Window, window, window se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The Ruxton Rise Residence is based on the clients’ three key values for life; family, health and integrity. The home isn’t just a physical structure, but also a structure of the family’s beliefs. The objective is to create a little bit of something precious rather than a lot of something mediocre. The focus became on the experience rather than the building form or visual statement.

The design for the Ruxton Rise Residence is approached as a contemporary take on the Beaumaris mid-century modern home, responding to the home’s unique sense of place and its rich architectural history.

The street elevation is nestled into the fall of the site, giving nothing away of what is within. Turning its focus inward, the internal courtyard is the heart and focus of the building. The landscape, and the movement and shadows it creates, provides a calming effect that permeates the whole house.

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The premise was an interpretation of an Australian Federation Farmhouse, sited on a hilltop in Carrickalinga.

With extreme winds, we manipulated the traditional farmhouse, stretching the perimeter to a square, whilst removing the center for the courtyard. With the verandah on the ‘wrong’ side we inverted the roof. This creates a low eave to the protected garden allowing solar gain and solar access.

The apertures were aligned, framing the views of the landscape. Industrial shutters filter the amount of light desired, tuning the house to the seasons. All rooms have dual aspect to both sea and the garden.

Exterior walls and shutters are clad in heritage galvanized corrugated iron, folding over the ridge, and lining the internal valleyed roof. Structural columns were used as downpipes harvesting rainwater.

The dwelling is true to ‘place’, minimising its impact to its landscape and carbon footprint.

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The Kyneton House is defined by its sense of singularity; both as an architectural element within its local context and in the spatial qualities of each room within.

The design process began with a single wall gesture, a repeating brickwork cup. This element was arranged to define the boundaries of the home and of the individual rooms, with the recess of each providing a nesting place for seating, kitchen, study etc. Always returning inwards, this repeating motif formed a thickness to the home’s exterior, providing a deepened reveal to every opening.

The celebration of material texture is balanced with the precisely folded, ceiling voids that define and light each of the spaces in the home.

Our ambition for the house is for it to act as a reference point to the passing of time, becoming a canvas for the change of light and the theatre of seasonal change occurring outside.

Text provided by the architect.

La entrada Kyneton House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The Cottage School is a unique, small, independent, secular, community primary school. It is located in Queen Street, in Kangaroo Bay. The school prioritises the environment as a critical framework for learning.

Cohabiting a series of Federation weatherboard worker’s cottages, the School has established a unique pedagogical structure which borrows heavily from the intimacy and domesticity of its setting.

A new Green Cottage ‘addition’ was conceived as a unifying element between the existing external teaching and play environments, and the domestic scale of the original cottage. A verandah forms an extension of the educational realm, for woodwork, seating, and water play. Along this covered edge, an operable facade serves as a ‘streetscape’ for displays, and encourages imaginative play at thresholds. The sensorial environment is carefully orchestrated, through subtle acoustic and lighting. The new interiors are composed through a singular, warm and calming palette, which ‘backgrounds’ the experience of learning.

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This childcare centre in Sydney’s Vaucluse looks to match innovative design with educational philosophy. A collaboration between Melbourne interior designer Danielle Brustman, SJB Architects and Supercontext Architecture, the project extended beyond typical educational design norms to offer a bespoke environment that fosters a sense of well-being among educators and students alike. “Our design strategy was meticulously developed to connect children with educators, nature, and the broader community,” Danielle explains. “This connection is facilitated through the thoughtful layout of indoor and outdoor spaces across three levels, each offering immersive thematic experiences.” The ground floor portrays water elements like boats and seas, while the first floor draws inspiration from sky elements like sunsets and clouds. Each space is crafted to stimulate the imagination and enhance learning experiences, deeply rooted in the natural beauty of the surrounding harbour.

La entrada Harbour Early Learning se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Quarry House is a response to sites constraints and historical use as a workers cottage and adjacency to the former Northcote quarry. Key considerations were resource use and how the reintroduction of light, air and vegetation could be achieved on the site. Introducing internal courtyards, where boundaries are defined by brick walls and inside life is brought back to the land. Designing around the garden space allowed for a design that can expand and contract to adapt to functional requirements and future use. It manifests an atmosphere enriched by biophilic design and detailed architectural craftmanship.

Quarry House is a shared vision between client and architect to respectfully renovate the clients existing workers cottage in Northcote into an architect designed, three-bedroom family home. Designed to function as a warm and comfortable family home with a depth of character connected to a series of courtyard gardens. Composition of the courtyard gardens provided a sense of expansive space to resolve functional constraints of the inner suburban site. The client had an interest in honest architecture and mid-century modern design. Their tastes are reflected in the extension with a strong combination of natural materials – concrete, masonry and local spotted gum.

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The Title deed that we now possess would have originally been given for little or no cost on the basis that the holder demonstrated “improvement” of the land that it described. Here that meant removing the trees and “improving” the pastures, erecting fences and excluding those who had, in ways that remain obvious today, dwelt on this land from the beginning.

If we acknowledge that a building has been built on contested land, this project for a new house perhaps should have been the subject of a disciplinary hearing by the Institute of Architects according to their Charter, and we would wish to make this case: This is not an extension, which would mean that we have sought to maintain or continue the current situation of dispossession of illegal occupation. It may be an alteration, as we have sought to remove fences, to stop grazing the land and to remove improvements from the land. We might think about this as unsettling.

La entrada Spring Creek Road Farm House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.