Colonnade House

“A house that exudes time­less rev­er­ence. Our home is a beau­ti­ful mar­riage of form and func­tion, of grandeur and cosi­ness, a seam­less flow from old to new and new to old. A sanc­tu­ary from the busy world out­side. The sea­son­al changes cap­tured by the design bring com­fort and enjoy­ment all year round con­nect­ing the inside and out­side. The aes­thet­ics imbue a calm­ing and spir­i­tu­al place. Our home is an enter­tain­ers dream, and we as a fam­i­ly all have spaces to enter­tain, work and relax pro­mot­ing pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy for us and those who enter our home. We love our home!” — quote from owner

Colon­nade House emerged from a brief for a large fam­i­ly home that respect­ed, but was dis­tinct­ly dif­fer­ent to their exist­ing fed­er­a­tion home. Where the her­itage build­ing was light-weight in nature, con­tained closed, dis­con­nect­ed rooms and was bad­ly sit­ed result­ing in a cramped feel, the exten­sion was to be mod­ern, robust, made from con­crete and well con­nect­ed to its gar­den sur­rounds. Togeth­er, new and old were to feel peace­ful and relax­ing, and be a great enter­tain­er for the art lov­ing family.

In cre­at­ing a dia­logue with the ele­gant her­itage home, the addi­tion is a mod­ern adap­ta­tion of its dis­tinct orig­i­nal char­ac­ter­is­tics. Where the old is adorned with dec­o­ra­tive details, the new con­tains a restrained mod­ern dec­o­ra­tive grain of refined steel, tim­ber, ren­der and tile detail­ing. Where the tra­di­tion­al lay­out con­tained closed defined rooms, the exten­sion uses archi­tec­tur­al devices to cre­ate a desired free flow­ing plan whilst main­tain­ing its spa­tial and pro­gram­mat­ic def­i­n­i­tion. Where the old con­tains inter­sect­ing gabled roof lines, the new mim­ics these with min­i­mal geo­met­ric roof forms and lofty ceil­ings. Where the old con­tained dec­o­ra­tive tim­ber win­dows, new­ly cre­at­ed steel win­dows abstract their detail link­ing from old to new. 

The exist­ing build­ing hous­es the pri­vate spaces, allow­ing for an inti­ma­cy and roman­tic old world charm. A new entry bisects old and the new, allow­ing occu­pants to appre­ci­ate the black paint­ed tim­ber­work of the old home before enter­ing a dra­mat­ic gallery style link­ing foy­er. From here, the idea of the colon­nade, the projects name­sake, begins. 

In deliv­er­ing a desired con­crete home aes­thet­ic on a bud­get, a dom­i­nant insi­tu con­crete colon­nade was cre­at­ed, run­ning cen­tral­ly through the new exten­sion and con­nect­ing the old home to gar­den. This func­tion­al devise fil­ters and screens light between liv­ing spaces and the north­ern pool and gar­den. Between the columns sits a col­lec­tion of inti­mate, sun­ny, gar­den-con­nect­ed win­dow daybeds and pedestals to house sculp­tures. Sup­port­ed by these columns floats a sim­ple black gable formed roof. 

With an artist own­er, the con­trol of light both nat­ur­al and arti­fi­cial, fram­ing of views, and cre­at­ing rich and tex­tured but sub­tle sur­faces was crit­i­cal to com­ple­ment the array of rotat­ing art and sculp­ture that will adorn the home. A palette of hand brushed tim­bers, plas­ters, con­crete, and ceram­ic tiles was cho­sen to pro­vide this com­ple­men­tary mut­ed back­drop. Where nec­es­sary, dark mir­rors, met­al sheet­ing and dec­o­ra­tive steel work enhance and reflect these sur­faces and frame the architecture.

This light filled home bal­ances new ther­mal mass, re-insu­lat­ed old struc­ture and dou­ble glaz­ing through­out. The new addi­tion suc­cess­ful­ly reori­ents to the north and pro­vides a well ven­ti­lat­ed home that suc­cess­ful­ly con­nects occu­pants to beau­ti­ful new­ly cre­at­ed mead­ow style land­scape. Solar hot water, water tanks and PV all work to assist the well exe­cut­ed homes pas­sive prin­ci­ples to cre­ate a high­ly effi­cient home.