the Wurunjeri Willam people of the Kulin nation
Victoria
Art and Garden House provides a new home and workplace for a passionate artist and landscape designer, and her daughter. The house has been designed around our clients’ requirement for full wheelchair accessibility.
Our client’s accessibility needs were never presented as a hindrance to either her outlook on life or to the way she envisioned her home. She was eager to live across two levels, enjoying the view toward the two elm trees at the front of the site.
The brief called for a simple, functional house incorporating the minimum amount of space necessary for living, a studio for working, and a focus on quality of craft, space, light, and connection to the garden.
From its inception, the house has been titled the Art and Garden House establishing the project’s priorities of integrating and framing the garden and landscape, while providing a space for art to be created and displayed.
This beautiful, wheelchair-accessible house is my home and workplace – I call it ‘bespoke compliant design’; flush thresholds, a lift, and ultra-considered proportions built specifically for me.Â
Generous spaces and unfussy materials enhance accessibility, while myriad intangibles facilitate my creative work: studio bathed in gorgeous light; walls and bookshelves for treasures and inspiration; the connection with the garden and leafy streetscape.Â
I love the lines of the house extending into the garden via the pergola providing a vine-covered threshold front and back, earthing the building within greenery of textured and unusual plants. It’s a wonderful space to live, play and work!
Nathanael Preston, Design Architect
Daniel Lane, Design Architect
Lucas Saunders, Project Architect
Jade Durling, Project Architect
MTO Engineers, Structural Engineer
Blue Banded Bee Architectural Services, ESD Consultant
TLC Pools, Pool Builder
C&M Building Surveyors, Building Surveyor