Beginning with the letter ‘K’ was not entirely arbitrary as our client’s family name begins with the letter. We had tried exploring writing and letters as design inspiration before, and also treating the space between letters as negative objects.
We decided to use the Kmart ‘K’ for our K, expanding it to the size of a house. By cutting the K in half across the middle and rotating the two pieces, the house began to emerge as a composition suspended along the maximum building height envelope to take advantage of the sea views. Under this we projected its shadow to form the ground level accommodation including the entry and space for two cars.
From the start we wanted to paint the entire house red but due to council regulations and our client’s wishes we made it grey instead and are probably glad we did.
Cladding both ‘K’ and shadow in the same timber panelling allowed the house to achieve a single dynamic as if inspired more by ships than signage, more like a rather racy ark than the sign and its shadow.
