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OR VIEW ALL PROJECTSOR GO BACK TO SEARCH RESULTSOR VIEW ALLPROJECTS BY ARCHITECT NICHOLAS MURCUTTHOUSE PROJECTS2007 PROJECTSPROJECTS IN SYDNEYPROJECTS PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRETT BOARDMAN |
Architect's statement
The project considers sustainability at a strategic level - it could be realised on a site half its size, effectively doubling the density of the block. Conceived as a model, it both embraces the suburban condition and interrogates it, proposing a number of adjustments to the single family suburban typology. While the program of the house is similar to its newer neighbours, the way it is organised on the site is quite distinct. The project seeks to overcome the autonomous relationship of house and garden that continues to typify the suburban condition, and to instead use the house to activate the whole of the site.
The house sits as a wedge along the southern boundary, opening to a side garden. The strategy creates a series of north-east facing internal rooms, each with a corresponding garden room. Reversing the trend towards increasing privacy, the front yard is designed as a living space that communicates with the street rather than a decorative buffer between public street and private house - a space that if repeated on neighbouring sites could invigorate street life.
The gentle gradient of the site is perceived inside the house. A stepping floor and counter-pitched single roof plane generate an unexpected spatial diversity internally.
Stepping occurs too in the plan through the subtle shifting of the circulation spine that allows glimpses along the length of the house to the gardens front and back. The house excludes south light entirely and carefully controls north light to both emphasise its changing quality and manage solar heat gain. Small skylights penetrate the roof at key moments to balance the light and illuminate walls. The construction techniques are conventional and thereby economic. A play between face brick and rendered brick externally animates the blunt form.
Five dock house
Successive housing booms and ongoing population growth has seen the sprawl of the suburb grow to a point where it is no loner sustainable economically or environmentally.
Perhaps, like the dinosaur, the suburb as we know it will become extinct. Perhaps some form of intervention is required, perhaps it needs to be euthanised, perhaps it only needs rehabilitation.
The very notion of a suburban existence excites some people yet terrifies others. Some shun its bourgeois extravagances of multiple bedrooms, garages and yard for the children, preferring the grit of the urban; where the paths of congested streets are decorated by dogs while their owners sip cafe lattes and discuss the latest work hanging in the local gallery. Others embrace suburbia in all its glory. After bringing in the washing from the Hill's hoist they happily bum fossil fuel to mow the back lawn they have watered from their newly installed rainwater tanks so that it looks 'nice'.
This house designed by Neeson Murcutt Architects is in Five Dock, a fairly typical inner-ring garden suburb west of the Sydney central business district. Located near the Parramatta River the area was originally inhabited by the Wangal people of the Eora Nation, who established an efficient and sustainable relationship with the land, scouring the rich shores of the river for cockles, rock oysters and mussels for food. The area passed through various pastoral owners following white settlement. Population grew rapidly with the postwar housing boom of the 1920s. Along with its neighbours Leichhardt and Haberfield it has a strong migrant community consisting mostly of Italians and some Greek families. Housing stock is predominantly modest Californian bungalows on large deep blocks with plenty of room to park a car, kick a soccer ball or even grow a few veggies. It is a place that embraced the ideals and aspirations of the postwar middle class. Like many inner suburbs the area is undergoing a slow metamorphosis; bungalows are being replaced by new dwellings in a variety of mock contextual and purportedly contemporary styles all of which appear to have been super-sized.
On the surface this house is simply a cleverly composed response to the brief for a large family home, which functionally included a garage, outdoor play space and a veggie garden - very Five Dock. If it were nothing more than this it would still be noteworthy for its considered control of light and space, which Rachel Neeson refers to as "episodic". The project goes beyond the pragmatics of program, however, and investigates a potential new model for suburban housing. This model has at its heart an interest in the sustainability of the suburb not so much in the technicalities of water harvesting or co-generation, but rather through increased efficiency, density and social interaction.
The design process included a study of project homes in some of Sydney's new outer suburbs. There has been a shift in project home design to improve solar access and provide stronger relationships between house and garden. These relationships are more often singular, however, limited to the private realm of the back yard. Whereas there is a clear disjunction between front garden, street and occupant. Front gardens are merely decorative places with little activity or interaction with the house or street life. These relationships are inverted in this project; the front garden connects directly to a primary living space and acts as a 'stage' to interact with the street. A zero side setback in part frees up space to the north-east where a series of useable 'garden rooms' has been established. The rear garden is very much that of a second generation European family, containing lawn, swimming pool, veggie patch and garden shed, all of which have been arranged in an eerily Hockney-esque composition. It is conceptually a sacrificial space; hypothetical studies for the site and beyond demonstrate how the house might be repeated to the rear in an effort to increase density and reduce sprawl. These key moves intensify the relationship between interior and exterior and open possibilities that might be employed at a variety of scales whilst maintaining some of the essential qualities of the suburban house.
Local planning controls are worded with tiresome references to context in terms of streetscape, pitched roofs, face brick and articulation. The response in this instance stretches a number of these definitions. The roof is pitched: mono-pitched; it has brickwork: bold 'blue-black', the fa9ade is articulated: with steel shade structures in micaceous iron oxide and it follows most of the set-back requirements. The approval process was relatively straightforward, and feedback from passers-by has been positive, suggesting that the community has more optimistic views as to the meaning of context than authorities presume. The streetscape is an eclectic mix of original bungalows, rendered mansions with fluted aluminium columns and textured brick numbers, which defy classification. While the house is clearly 'contemporary' it does not rely on pop culture imagery or formal gymnastics to denote the era of its realisation.
Formally, the house comprises an elevated brick wedge, which rests on a series of rendered concrete blade walls. Each wall defines an interior and exterior space with its own particular character and function. Like most suburban homes the kitchen is the heart of the house. It sits centrally in the plan tucked under a robust bridge, which spans a double-height space containing family room and casual eating. This central space and the adjoining formal dining room each have a corresponding garden space conceived as an extension of the interior. The dining table extends into the outdoor space for large family functions. The generous volume of the monochromatic family room is unlikely to be found in the project homes visited by Neeson and Murcutt yet is achieved using similar basic technologies: painted plywood and laminated timber beams. The inclusion of two small proprietary skylights allow shafts of light to track across blank white walls like an inverted sundial revealing the passing of the day. Save for a few slightly up-market finishes the house employs conventional construction techniques throughout; it could be readily adapted for the project home market.
Pressures on fossil fuels, water land and transport networks require a rethinking of the sprawl of the suburb as we know it. Like the original land owners, contemporary society must develop a more efficient and sustainable relationship with the (suburban) landscape. These issues are slowly being addressed at a macro scale through government policies such as the Building Sustainability Index (BASIX) and the Metro Strategy. This project takes on the rethinking of the suburb at a micro scale, investigating beyond the programmatic limitations of the brief and explores beyond its four walls.
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