Architects and designers often design houses as a canvas for inhabitation. They provide the framework and opportunities, but how this transition of house into home occurs is not up to the architect – it is up to the home owner. Designing in this way means that spaces need to be multifunctional and easily adapted to suit changing needs.
Architect Stephen Neille asserts that “we often discuss the idea that a project comes into its fullest state of expression six to eight years after the built work is completed.” The Claremont House by Pendal and Neille is an extension to a Perth home that gives an unbridled interior volume perfect for the humanizing quality of occupation.
The Venus Bay House by Welsh and Major Architects is also designed as a relatively blank canvas ideal for the collection of objects and memories. When I visited this project, architects David Welsh and Christine Major were enjoying a holiday with their children at their client’s house. Eating lunch on the verandah reminded me of summer days as a child spent at Crescent Head in New South Wales – and I could easily imagine the memories that would be created at this beach house.
With a brief of “just a few extra rooms,” the Dynnyrne Extension by Preston Lane Architects is the adaption of the living zone to embrace the garden, ensuring the home will suit the growing family for many years to come. This project is about subtle shifts and insertions that provide multifunctional and flexible zones.
Freadman White’s North Melbourne Townhouses project is a set of four homes that can be adapted to suit individual needs – to the extent that each one can be used for both residential and commercial uses.
This issue of Houses also includes houses by Panovscott Architects, Techne Architects, Nixon Tulloch Fortey Architecture, James Stockwell Architect, Jackson Clements Burrows and Edwards Moore. We also revisit Eddie Oribin’s House and Studio in Cairns and profile Room 11 Architects.
Katelin Butler, editor
Source
Archive
Published online: 23 Jan 2014
Images:
Benjamin Hosking,
Brett Boardman,
Fraser Marsden,
Peter Clarke,
Robert Frith
Issue
Houses, February 2014