Bungalow 8 House

Bun­ga­low 8 is the lat­est in a long series of ren­o­vat­ed Bun­ga­lows our office has under­tak­en in the last 15 years around Mel­bourne. This unique peri­od style home typ­i­cal­ly fea­tures wide cor­ri­dors, deep front veran­dahs, tex­tured plas­ter­board, and sub­tle tim­ber detail­ing inside and out that was tra­di­tion­al­ly bor­rowed from a Japan­ese vernacular. 

Bun­ga­lows make great fam­i­ly homes, and this mod­est ren­o­va­tion, designed to cel­e­brate the sim­ple joys of sub­ur­ban fam­i­ly life is no dif­fer­ent. With a focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, com­fort, afford­abil­i­ty and a con­sid­ered con­nec­tion to light and gar­den, this ren­o­vat­ed Bun­ga­low presents a mod­ern yet respect­ful response to this com­mon hous­ing style.

Dri­ven by sus­tain­able prin­ci­ples, the project is an adap­tive reuse of the orig­i­nal struc­ture that retains as much of the exist­ing lay­out as pos­si­ble, whilst cre­at­ing a more mod­ern free-flow­ing north-fac­ing series of con­nect­ed liv­ing spaces. Using the bed­rooms as a datum for sep­a­ra­tion, the new addi­tion cuts along the site cre­at­ing a dis­tinct tri­an­gle in plan to re-ori­ent pri­ma­ry spaces to the north. While work­ing to con­tribute to pas­sive heat­ing and cool­ing, the angle cre­ates a unique junc­ture between inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or and frames views from with­in. The sim­ple roofline is an afford­able, yet strik­ing device to guide the arrange­ment of spaces.

Extreme­ly robust in nature, the design embraces com­plete func­tion­al­i­ty and prac­ti­cal­i­ty for a fam­i­ly. The lay­outs account for flex­i­bil­i­ty of spaces between pub­lic and pri­vate areas. The house is inde­struc­tible for their young chil­dren and will grow with them over the years.

Sus­pend­ed from the bulk­head, a cen­tral tim­ber join­ery ele­ment adds sig­nif­i­cant stor­age, con­nects the kitchen/​dining spaces and opens up to become inte­grat­ed with the back­yard. The archi­tec­ture pro­motes con­stant con­nec­tion to land­scaped gar­dens and carves away ample out­door spaces to allow for exer­cise and safe areas for chil­dren to play.

While being sus­tain­able, afford­able and robust, the mate­ri­al­i­ty was select­ed to cre­ate a sense of warmth using a sim­ple palette of nat­ur­al mate­ri­als – tim­ber, con­crete and stone. 

A place for enjoy­ing the sim­ple plea­sures of domes­tic archi­tec­ture, Bun­ga­low 8 is char­ac­terised by qual­i­ty spaces that are well con­nect­ed to nat­ur­al light, to its exte­ri­or gar­den and well zoned for fam­i­ly inter­ac­tion, whilst respond­ing to a broad­er sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty to the environment.