Weekly Wrap of Australian Architecture
Australian Architecture showcases the high quality of architecture and design in Australia. Check out the latest projects which were featured last week on the platform.
Palm Beach Blue by Benn + Penna
Palm Beach, NSW
From the Architect: Palm Beach Blue is a new house perched upon Observations Point in Palm Beach, NSW. The project is conceived as an incarnation of the previous house on its site, a family heirloom built originally by the client’s grandfather. The new house contains 4 bedrooms along with an open plan kitchen/living/dining space.
The project strategically perches a subtle vernacular form atop the site’s steep cliff, sheltering the house from the road and opening views to the bay. The house’s geometries are carved in a methodological process that defines much of our practice’s work - making specific references to site and programme, and resulting in an abstract sculpted form inseparable from the site.
The monolithic presence of the house is akin to the weathered rock it sits on, making the distinction between inside and outside spaces deliberately ambiguous.
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www.bennandpenna.com
@bennandpenna_architecture
#bennandpennaarchitecture
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Photographers: @tfadtomferguson , @_katlu , Andrew Benn
Builder: @newmarkconstructions
Villa Italia by Splinter Society Architecture
Brunswick East, VIC
From the Architect: A second-generation family home, Villa Italia is a renovation and extension to a classic single fronted Victorian terrace located in Brunswick East.
Responding to the existing urban density, the home unfolds behind a narrow 4.5-metre façade. While the project incorporates an additional level, it is vastly obscured behind the gable and chimney, so the originality of the historic façade is maintained. The façade has been sandblasted to reveal the existing masonry celebrating its original character. Contemporary details were selected to bring out the sense of time including a repurposed Romanian metal fence, feature door and rough stone paving.
The mass of the building is carefully broken up to bring light through all sides of the building employing a series of modest terraces and skylights as well as filtering through the central stair.
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www.splintersociety.com
@splinter_society_architecture
#splintersocietyarchitecture
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Photographer: @sharyncairns
Builder: @crispprojectsmelbourne
Aireys House by Studio Nicholas Burns
Aireys Inlet, VIC
From the Architect: Aireys Inlet is a quiet coastal town located on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. The site is inland slightly on the edge of the hills in dense bushland overlooking the inlet, lighthouse and ocean to the south, a valley to the west, the ocean to the east and bushland to the north. The site has some endangered tree species which were carefully avoided along with other existing trees by siting the house in an existing clearing occupied by a simple dwelling built after the bushfires in 1983.
The house responds to the site and vegetation, the siting is nested into the gradient allowing the house to naturally fall away to the south east, the earth helps to stabilise the temperature over the seasons. The house is perfectly orientated east - west, allowing winter sun from the north to penetrate deep into the living spaces and to catch the cooling breezes from the south, coming off ocean.
Horizontal planes frame the horizon to the south and east, the floor plane cuts out the foreground making the ocean seem closer and more intense.
Rammed earth fin walls rhythmically frame sections of the horizon, revealing and concealing, connecting to intimate moments in the landscape
looking north and west the fin walls frame the bush, singling out significant trees giving them prominence and focus, connecting the experience to these details and deepening the connection to nature.
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www.nicholas-burns.com
@studionicholasburns
#nicholasburns
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Photographer: @peterbbennetts
Rammed Earth Contractor: @earthstructuressurfcoast
Lambton House by Curious Practice
Lambton, NSW
From the Architect: Lambton House is a new suburban four bedroom family home. A small ground floor footprint maximise landscaped areas, promoting and maintaining the green and leafy suburb whilst configuring family living to an intimate scale with the ability to expand via large openings into the garden. A step-down in level from entry to living areas creates a seat at garden level and combined with a generous window, injects light, air and a convivial connection to the street and passers-by. This public gesture is continued through an extension of the green streetscape through fences and canopies designed for verdant consumption of the building over time.
Upstairs, a raked ceiling envelopes the entire floor with custom fanlights over internal doors allowing privacy, air flow and visual connection between bedrooms. This ceiling extends out over external areas to further promote connection with garden and street.
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www.curiouspractice.com
@curious_practice
#curiouspractice
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Photographer: @_katlu
Builder: @builtbyeli
Landscape: @tallowood_landscapes
Furniture: @koskela_