This house is a nuanced response to context, balancing confident, contemporary expression with love and respect for the neighbourhood. It’s also a delightful place to live. That is, a thermally efficient, light filled dwelling with an emphasis on connection to landscape.
We looked at corner buildings in the North Fitzroy vicinity and were drawn to the performative role of first floor balconies, the sense of a public loggia.
The main intentions remain – a considered balance between solid and void which emphasizes elegant planes of masonry with a concentration of detail around apertures. We split the function of the Victorian first floor balcony with a theatrical dining room taking the role of public space in the most prominent corner – the sense of being on public display ameliorated through the use of strategically placed mirrors to confuse sightlines. Proportions are drawn from surrounding buildings, with an emphasis on first floor scale – a piano nobile, tall and elegant. A first floor balcony is recessed, sized for use not display, offering privacy further back in the site.
In terms of siting, we were careful to reinforce the five metre subdivision rhythm and this allowed us to both hold the southern edge on the ‘six ways’ and provide north orientation and garden aspect to all principal rooms. The spatial arrangement is ‘reverse living’, with kitchen, living and dining room on the first floor. Colour palette is derived from the handsome copse of spotted gums in the centre of the six ways – surfaces are generally uncoated and textural, the emphasis is on the views out, especially to the garden – the effect is austere but warm and comfortable.
