Earthen Warehouse

Earth­en Ware­house is the trans­for­ma­tion of a 1980’s con­vert­ed Mac­Robert­son choco­late fac­to­ry ware­house apart­ment. Designed for a young fam­i­ly, the activ­i­ty dri­ven spa­tial lay­out pro­vides a diverse and cohe­sive design solu­tion. The part indus­tri­al, part nat­ur­al earthy aes­thet­ic cre­ates a sophis­ti­cate yet warm and home­ly inner city liv­ing environment.

In order to trans­form an unre­mark­able rec­tan­gu­lar vol­ume on a small bud­get, a sim­ple, high impact spa­tial solu­tion ratio­nalised the pro­gram of the project. The three bed­rooms are locat­ed to the South, con­nect­ing chil­dren to active com­mu­nal court­yard gar­dens at the cen­tre of the apart­ment devel­op­ment. Open liv­ing spaces are pushed to the sin­gle north win­dow, whilst food ser­vice and qui­et work­ing / music spaces sit centrally.

At this cen­tral point, a raised floor was intro­duced to allow for a large HVAC sys­tem as well as to intro­duce a sophis­ti­cat­ed mate­ri­al­i­ty to the pri­vate sec­tion of the home. As a result, this enabled a ver­ti­cal pro­gram­mat­ic sep­a­ra­tion and cre­at­ed a dynam­ic spa­tial experience.

While retain­ing the dis­tinct ware­house archi­tec­tur­al frame­work, the spaces are dis­tin­guished by soft rus­tic tones and high­ly tex­tured design explor­ing the clients’ inter­est in adobe con­struc­tion, hav­ing lived in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Com­bin­ing the two influ­ences, a gen­tle rus­tic curve wall flows through the new­ly revealed ware­house shell. The warm tone of the wall draw­ing from the colour of the brick­work in the ware­house space. Detail through the kitchen and bath­rooms use heav­i­ly tex­tured sur­faces rough sawn tim­ber and hand­made tiles adding a warmth through the indus­tri­al interiors.

This bare shell is ser­viced via fea­ture tim­ber duct­works and exposed cables to com­plete the soft indus­tri­al expres­sion. With a palette focused on raw and nat­ur­al mate­ri­als, a com­pi­la­tion of nat­ur­al pig­ment earth ren­ders, acoustic straw board, recy­cled Ore­gon beams, paper mache pen­dants and lime paints pro­vide a healthy and sus­tain­able inter­nal environment.

With­in a small foot­print and a fixed bud­get, the Earth­en­ware House, brings a dis­tinct sense of warmth and a flex­i­ble plan to an inner-city fam­i­ly home, cel­e­brat­ing its ware­house context.