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Grandview Grove House
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Built on a small site that was carved from a larger, neighbouring block in the 1950s, the contemporary house was designed for the owners' retirement by architects Stephen O'Connor and Annick Houle and is the result of collaboration between clients who knew what they wanted and architects they trusted implicitly.
From the front wall of the new building, it's evident that something interesting has happened here. Tall, to match the other walls on this largely traditional Melbourne Street, this wall is gabion, a caged stone structure borrowed from the realm of civil engineering and given an unexpectedly domestic application.
1 wanted the wall to be a contribution to the street and the house, not just a tall brick fence," Houle explains. "Gabion is used a lot along highways in Switzerland and you can see it here on the Geelong highway. We've taken that technique and tried to refine it in such a way to make it suitable for a residential application."
Labour intensive, a gabion wall is about 50 per cent more expensive than more traditional fencing. Significant pluses, however, are not only its striking architectural presence, but its acoustic insulation qualities which were important for this house.
The initial challenge was to realise the potential of a site that shares the same 20 metre frontage as its neighbours, but, unlike them, is only 20 metres deep. The solution was to establish the gabion wall as the front elevation of the house, which is set back only fractionally from the street.
From a wide, sky-lit entrance, steps lead up to one side of the L-shape that accommodates the kitchen, dining and living area. The other side houses bedrooms, a guest bath and study.
Although, at 200 square metres, this is not a large house, its striking sense of space is achieved through an expanse of dark stained Tasmanian oak used both for flooring and for kitchen cupboards, and through its generous orientation to the courtyard. In the courtyard, silver birches have been placed for apparently random informality and a low, horizontal window to the study has been trimmed in grey to contrast, with white trim elsewhere.
Throughout the house materials were designed to lend a utilitarian feel and to serve as a backdrop to the paintings and furniture which the owners brought from previous houses. "Some architects would probably encourage clients to get new stuff," Houle acknowledges, "but our view was not to push that aside. We wanted to set up the house as a backdrop for the lives of the owners, but without being too passive about the process."
Visual strength and simplicity are achieved through prominent use of concrete bricks in the core of the house and fireplace wall, and with render applied to the courtyard to reflect sunlight into the living areas. Along the far wall, a skylight admits more natural light, its solar glass providing protection for paintings that the owners have been collecting for years. Behind the dining table, panels slide across to hide the kitchen when desired. To the right of the fireplace, another panel shields storage for firewood, a large sound system and the couple's extensive music collection.
Because of a natural slope on the site that necessitated a slight stepping down of the study and bedrooms, windows along this side of the house are quite low. Not only does this provide a visually interesting change in orientation from the main courtyard, but it allows for ground-level views from the study into the living areas for anyone who happens to be seated at the desk.
Opposite the study, bedrooms and an ensuite bathroom face a second small courtyard slipped between the house and the front wall. Here, the entire facade is a translucent glass curtain wall like those used in high-rise buildings. Completely private from the street, the apparent vulnerability of the glass plays off against the solid nature of the wall, This courtyard, with its magnolias and fine sand was planned as much for visual appeal as for actual habitation.
Such is the success of this house in meeting the very specific needs of its clients that it has been short-listed this year in the awards for the Residential New category by the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Royal Institute of Architects.
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