This highly contextual extension responds to the principles of the ‘Garden City’, integrating home, garden and streetscape. In doing so, it continues the vision for the area laid out by the Housing Commission in the 1940s.
Curious neighbours slow their cars. From between the trees across a vast nature strip, a fence-like shed with a cyclops eye peers back at them. ‘Whose world is this?’ they ask. This street-side pavilion is an artist’s studio; the window is her muse. It’s timber wall, garden-nestled, curves from the street. With itbends a path.
If the gate is open, visitors – having glimpsed inside – may enter a somewhat private, somewhat inviting garden courtyard. Here, the studio provides protection from the street; greenery softens the edges; tall battened fencing conceals all but the neighbour’s terracotta rooftop.
A moon of stone paving and a deep timber awning press into the side of the house, bending its glass wall inwards. Dappled shade, pale green bagging and the play of refracted light lend the threshold an aquatic atmosphere that carries into the house.
Inside, space is amorphous. Each of the living areas is like a corner of the gardenlooselydefined by tapering walls and pinched thresholds, expanding to accommodate a home’s modest comforts.An enfilade of study, gallery and dining tie the old house back to the new. The walls and the floors are solid and substantial; everything else is light.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“A.A. have been a wonderful company to work with on our building project. Michael and Daria had a unique and beautiful vision for our home. They led our project creatively and technically but always responded to our needs at every step; the process felt inclusive and collaborative.
“Nearly 12 months on from completion and we are still exploring and discovering nuances and subtleties of the spaces that they created: the volumes, the materials, the textures, the palette and the light - as it changes throughout the day and throughout the year. We are sure that this will be a joy for many years to come.”
RICHARD AND REBECCA
ARCHITECT’S STATEMENT – FOR HOUSES
Park Life is a highly contextual extension in Williamstown North. This contemporary design responds to the principles of the ‘garden city’, integrating home, garden and streetscape. In doing so, it continues the vision for the area as laid out by the Housing Commission of Victoria in the 1940s.
Located on Park Crescent in the Champion Road Estate Heritage Precinct, the area remains one of the best preserved of the early Housing Commission of Victoria estates, ‘notable for its strong visual homogeneity… and curving street layout around a central park.’
The length of Park Crescent features a broad nature strip, several meters wide. Most houses are set back from the street with low fences, contributing their generous front gardens to the streetscape.
Located on a corner lot with its backyard facing onto Park Crescent, this project presented Architecture Architecture with an usual challenge: how to create a private backyard for their clients, while contributing to the generous, green park life of the heritage streetscape.
The artist’s studio mediates between streetscape and courtyard, establishing a clear threshold into the private realm of the property, while presenting a deep, gentle curve that welcomes guests and neighbours to venture in, or a cocktail gathering to spill-out. A large timber-battened gate allows this threshold to be closed-down as required.
Inside, minor modifications to the existing house substantially restructure its use and function, establishing the quieter, private zones for sleep, study, music and relaxation. The new living zones extend diagonally out from the existing house; walls flare, pinch and curve, sometimes stealing, sometimes surrendering space to the courtyard, ensuring both benefit from a sense of generosity.
Concrete, rendered brick, timber and porcelain: materials here are subtle but earthy, establishing living spaces that are grounded and protective, hugging the side and rear site boundaries, forming the backdrop for the courtyard.
At the moment of transition between the old house and the new, the threshold swells to form a modest gallery, where the occupants of this house, artist and curator, share their love of the visual arts.
