Eterne House - Concept Design Evolution

Cur­rent­ly mov­ing into the con­struc­tion phase, the Eterne House is a large fam­i­ly home locat­ed on a state­ly street in Coburg. Due to the area’s her­itage sig­nif­i­cance, and a client design for a con­tem­po­rary response, the coun­cil nego­ti­a­tions were robust, lead­ing to the devel­op­ment of sev­er­al respons­es. As we explored var­i­ous arche­typ­al mod­els, we’d like to present some of the intrigu­ing con­cepts that emerged dur­ing the jour­ney to the final approved design.

Reimag­in­ing the tra­di­tion­al bun­ga­low style com­mon to the neigh­bour­hood, the studio’s ini­tial design aims to deliv­er a con­tem­po­rary inter­pre­ta­tion of this archi­tec­tur­al style. Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from the char­ac­ter­is­tic sloped ter­ra­cot­ta roofs, the façade promi­nent­ly fea­tures the roof ele­ment. This top vol­ume show­cas­es a cus­tom con­vex pink gran­ite roof with a pix­e­lat­ed pat­tern, metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed to cre­ate a visu­al effect of dimin­ish­ing tiles when viewed in per­spec­tive. Some tiles are angled and incor­po­rate win­dows to allow north­ern light to fil­ter in. The roof ele­ment is set on a ped­i­ment­ed veran­da con­struct­ed from chunky rock pil­lars, that reflect a her­itage ele­ment, whilst ground­ing the build­ing with­in its landscape.

Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with the coun­cil, our response evolved through sev­er­al iter­a­tions while pre­serv­ing the promi­nent roof ele­ment and expan­sive veran­das. Whilst the street encom­pass­es a broad array of styles, and the most sig­nif­i­cant homes are Vic­to­ri­an, and Ital­ianate Vic­to­ri­an, the end result was a pref­er­ence to embrace some of the ele­ments of the Span­ish Mis­sion her­itage fab­ric of the neighbourhood.

As a rein­ter­pre­ta­tion of Span­ish Mis­sion style her­itage homes, the final design for the Eterne House shifts the focus so that the dom­i­nant fea­ture is now the deep-set veran­das, beau­ti­ful­ly framed by over­sized mod­ern arch­es. The design fea­tures a rich, tex­tured mate­ri­als palette, includ­ing ren­dered sur­faces and intri­cate­ly pat­terned nat­ur­al stone, to con­vey a sense of grandeur appro­pri­ate to both the house’s scale and its his­tor­i­cal con­text. A reces­sive, fine­ly slop­ing roof ele­ment uses con­tem­po­rary ceram­ic tiles.

In a fur­ther rein­ter­pre­ta­tion, mod­ern arcs are incor­po­rat­ed as sweep­ing curves through­out the plan. These soft, flow­ing forms enhance the interior’s ele­vat­ed qual­i­ties when paired with ornate stone fea­tures. The mon­u­men­tal scale of the home meets the clients’ brief for a space to sup­port enter­tain­ing for mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional gath­er­ings. Spa­cious enter­tain­ing areas with expan­sive glaz­ing con­nect seam­less­ly to the pool and gar­dens. Link­ing to the front face, the rear veran­da is framed by a series of arch­es, result­ing in ele­gant sight­lines and light wells.

We look for­ward to shar­ing addi­tion­al details of this project’s progress as it advances into the con­struc­tion phase.