This project involved the alterations and additions of a modest brick residence built in 1951.
The site is one of nine blocks in O’Connor that back onto a small hidden reserve serving as an extension to the residents’ backyard and as a playground for their children.
The owners required an addition to the back of the house to:
• Accommodate a new family room at garden level,
• Accommodate a new study and master-bedroom with views to the reserve,
• Upgrade the kitchen and dining areas and maintain sightlines to monitor their young children when playing outside.
The design response was to make the original house the mid-level from which one can step down to a new family room or step up to a study and master-bedroom. A two-storey void space became the link between these levels and the transition between the original house and the new addition. This vertical space is the key architectural element that generated the design for the interior and exterior of the building.
Internally:
• It is a spacious, light filled area that draws light into the core of the house,
• It enhances the ventilation and thermal comfort of the house through low and high level operable windows.
Externally:
• It is the transition between the traditional hip roof of the original house and the modern skillion roof of the addition.
View Original