A Melbourne Home’s Fancy Brick Work Breaks the Mold

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Project Details:

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Architect: Studio Bright / @studio_bright

Footprint: 4,736 square feet

General Contractor: Basis Builders

Structural Engineer: Meyer Consulting

Landscape Consultant: Peachy Green

Landscape Construction: Vogue Grange

Photographer: Rory Gardiner / @arorygardiner

From the Architects: "A new house for a large family, located on a double fronted site in North Fitzroy, with heritage overlay, reflects our ongoing desire to prioritize outdoor spaces as much as indoor. Rather than have one singular backyard and the bulk of the house as one mass, the planning and spaces are distributed along the length of the site, punctuated with a series of variously sized outdoor courtyards.

"By applying the streetscape rhythm to parts of its proportions and fenestration, the street facade seeks to both empathize with context and yet address the disruptive site width. Accommodating a bedroom garden courtyard in direct proximity to the street, the brick surface softens and dissolves from a referenced formal composition to a more ambiguous receding curved hit-and-miss screen element, while still holding to material continuity.

"Eight yard spaces hang off the rooms. Their functions specialize along the lines of the spaces they adjoin and offer a diversity of outdoor enjoyments; cooking, eating, swimming, sunny repose, leafy outlook, city views. Clues of visual continuity, such as wall height datums and surface finish, work to break down distinctions between inside and out.

"The upper northern edge of the building presents a considerable challenge to resolve conflicting goals of light admission, environmental tempering, and control of overlooking. Aluminum screens with planter bases set up a light-filtering leafy green intermediary layer beyond the glass line. Planting opportunities like this are set up throughout the house ensuring the ongoing aging process is also a greening process."