Sweetwater House | Christopher Botterill and Jackson Clements Burrows Architects
Located in Frankston South on Bunurong Country and backing onto Narringalling (Sweetwater Creek), Sweetwater House provides flexibility and sanctuary for our family of four. Designed and built during Melbournes Covid lockdowns, the home reflects an inventive response to lowcost, multigenerational living while telling a story of personal and ecological renewal.
Drawing on knowledge and experience gleaned from previous masstimber projects, the home was constructed using a prefabricated construction methodology.
Our ambition was to create a materially honest and highly sustainable home. We developed a plan arrangement that could adapt to the changing needs of two teenage children and allow for multigenerational living. The gravitational heart is an open plan living room and kitchen overlooking the creek. Encircled by tree ferns and eucalypts, the homes warm timber palette nurtures a sense of welcome and calm.
Shiplap House | Chenchow Little
Seventy percent of Australians live in suburban housing. This context is often overlooked in discussions related to increasing housing supply. This project, on a subdivided block half the size of its neighbours, allowed us to explore increasing suburban density without compromising amenity.
The character of the suburb has changed in recent years with exotic gardens and large masonry houses replacing the endemic planting and weatherboard fisherman’s cottages of early European settlement.
The façade of the Shiplap House is clad with white painted timber boarding to reference the materiality of the traditional fishing cottages. The openings within the façade are carefully sited to maximise and frame dramatic views over the harbour while maintaining privacy between the closely sited neighbouring houses.
Ventilation panels adjacent to each window provide cross ventilation and sun shading awnings provide a playful pattern to the façade. The house is set within a garden of endemic planting.
River View House | Studio Heim
River View House, a long linear design, takes advantage of expansive views to the Molonglo River corridor and across to the Arboretum. Unlike its neighbours, who demand attention through excessiveness and scale, the house is quiet and humble through its lowline single storey form made from neutral earthy materials.
The form comprises a simple skillion roof which kicks up to the north to take in winter sun to warm the house. Shading devices protect it from the summer sun. Brickwork and textured pre coloured fc cladding have been used as a response to a client request for low maintenance.
River View House is subtle and subdued in an area that has been built up to the boundaries. Its connection to site, thoughtful planning, and practical design following simplistic principles, is a testament to the fact that even in later stages of life, one can still have the great Australian dream.
Oak Gully House | Max Pritchard Gunner Architects
A small, timeless, family home that reflects traditional hills houses with their pitched iron roofs and local random stone.
Orientation to maximise passive solar performance was a key goal for the project. The resolution is two narrow pavilions. These reduce the visual bulk of the house and, orientated east west, maximize north facing windows for winter sun. The dark burnished concrete floor and internal stone effectively act as heat sink storing heat from the winter sun to warm the house at night. Internally a restrained material pallet create a warm timeless aesthetic.
The owners report how their house has been a social success with so many local residents calling past for a closer look and to compliment the design. It’s a great example of a couple, passionate about architecture, having the opportunity to share their passion with the local community and promote thoughtful sensitive design.
Little Young Street 4A & 4B | David Langston-Jones
With a footprint little bigger than a pair of double garages, two 80 sq m houses have been fitted onto an awkward sloping site which most would expect to contain only one. Infilling a narrow inner city laneway, these replace the original asbestos ridden bungalow, which had outlived its usefulness, with two storey houses without garages taking advantage of their proximity to public transport.
The identical houses are ‘upside down’: bedrooms below and living areas above. All ‘machines’ bathrooms, stairs, kitchens, rubbish bins, etc are rowed in front concentrating the main massing away from the street. Articulate and expressive, the resulting external appearance contributes much to the streetscape.
Internally, the houses exhibit a spaciousness and grandeur that belie their size and are private yet transparent in spite of being cheek by jowl with neighbours. Carefully arranged openings frame views onto courtyard gardens, distant trees and the sky while filtered sunlight enliven the living areas throughout the day.
Irrawaddy | Incidental Architecture
Irrawaddy is on Cammeraygal land, within suburban Chatswood. Although a larger house (271m2), Irrawaddy incorporates the fine grain to nurture a family of eight.
The clients, having grown up in what was Burma, shared stories of the Irrawaddy river being synonymous with the lifeblood of Burmese culture and fundamental to every aspect commerce, transport, spirituality, and not least, shelter.
Taking inspiration from the vernacular of Burmese delta houses on stilts, the branch like steel structure of Irrawaddy is expressed inside and out, straddling the ground floor footprint. Living spaces spill outside as the first floor floats overhead.
Motivated by their six children, playful elements are scattered throughout. A loft space is accessed by a rolling ladder through high level joinery. Monkey bars span between pavilions. Pivoting screens steal views between levels.
Kids bedrooms are deliberately tiny, only 2.3mx1.9m, with built in joinery allowing maximum function.
A house to gather yet retreat, work yet play.
Ioppolo | vittinoAshe
This project questions where the boundaries lie within the field of small residential models close to the city. The architectural proposition considers the Australian housing crisis and seeks to demonstrate a site-responsive, socially integrated alternative as a sustainable way to accommodate a sector of our population in detached dwellings.
This proposal explores a layered approach that, in addition to meeting client requirements, seeks to privilege ecological and cultural repair for the collective within the setting of a private residential lot. The design parameters aim to maximise the amount of permeable ground by stacking the program vertically and hence minimising the building’s footprint. This thinking has its origins in modernism, but the rationale and execution of it have been extended to include local neighbourhood accounts, ensuring we are not only maximising garden area and recharging the aquifer but also weaving social narratives and truth-telling in a non-civic, domestic setting.
Fish River House | Incidental Architecture
Fish River House is on Gundungurra land, on a fertile strip of granite country adjacent to the Fish River; a capillary river flowing from the Blue Mountains.
The clients are second generation custodians of the site, with the intention to support the continuity of the gathering of four (living) generations of family.
Being near Oberon, the site is characterised by hot dry days in summer, and regular snow in winter. The house is required to provide a reasonable level of comfort, whilst balancing passive and active systems. orientation and solar access is deeply considered.
Spatially and emotionally, there is an intentional dialogue between prospect and refuge. View and protection are equally important.
One of the most satisfying aspects of this project is the way it helped encourage capacity within the local building community. The builder, certifier and most consultants were drawn locally from Oberon.
Adelaide Street House | Robert Simeoni Architects
This house at 27 Adelaide Street was imagined as an occupied ruin, allowing it to parallel and frame the internal life and graceful aging of a young family in place.
The house is expressed externally as a series of concrete forms aligning with the proportions and scale of the street, and is broken by lightweight infill that expresses its internal occupation, together achieving a balanced composition of solidity and transparency.
The concrete continues internally, framing views that are orientated inwards between spaces and onto the central courtyard which is used to bring northern light deep into the linear plan, moderate the scale of the building from the surrounding context, and minimise reliance on outward openings that reduces overlooking and solar heat gain. Highlevel windows at the upper storey gesture to the sky, further reducing views outward in favour of upward.
10/30 House | Matt Thitchener Architect
10/30 house is a beautifully simple brick and timber framed home, situated in scenic Pearl Beach surrounded by trees, on a compromised flood prone site.
Ristricted to a building pad of just 12% of the total site area, with minimum street setbacks, simple planning has ensured that the house still feels open and grounded.
A simple and robust palette creates a quiet space from which to appreciate framed views of the surrounding bushland.
Clever design ensures close neighbours do not detract from the tranquil setting.
10/30 house is an unassuming home meant for retreat from the city and fostering family connection.
