Gardener’s House

Locat­ed on a large block in Brunswick East, the Gardener’s House is designed to recess with­in the clien­t’s orna­men­tal gar­den and cre­ate micro­cli­mates and frame views both inside and out as you make your way around the property. 

Peer­ing out from the lush plants, the front por­tion of the home is an exist­ing peri­od struc­ture that has been paint­ed a con­tem­po­rary tonal red as a strat­e­gy to ratio­nalise var­i­ous ele­ments of its his­to­ry from the mason­ry con­struc­tion and Ital­ianate exter­nal fea­tures to the pink ter­raz­zo bath­room. This approach is both sus­tain­able and cost-effec­tive whilst allow­ing the nar­ra­tive of the orig­i­nal build­ing to remain a key fea­ture cre­at­ing an inter­est­ing dia­logue between old and new. 

At the inter­sec­tion, the demo­li­tion is cel­e­brat­ed as an arti­fact from the past. The pre­vi­ous con­crete veran­da is vis­i­bly peeled away to open into a new ful­ly mod­ern liv­ing space. Inter­est­ing aspects of the pre­vi­ous archi­tec­ture have become inte­grat­ed into the exter­nal plant­i­ngs includ­ing the ter­raz­zo bath­room which now forms a court­yard, com­plete with exist­ing plumb­ing fea­tures and bath­room fin­ish­es. Pock­ets of gar­den spaces, includ­ing the client’s vibrant col­lec­tion of exot­ic orchids occu­py the phys­i­cal sep­a­ra­tion between old and new and allow light to sur­round the exten­sion on all sides in inter­est­ing ways through­out the day. 

Shift­ing the con­ven­tion, the mod­ern vol­ume is posi­tioned to face the neigh­bour­ing home which allows the light to slice through the space despite the block orientation’s lim­it­ed aspect. Between the inter­sti­tial gar­den space, side gar­den and rear gar­den the inte­ri­or space is ful­ly sur­round­ed by gar­dens and nat­ur­al light which can be enjoyed from the large, glazed out­looks. Addi­tion­al­ly, the use of red in the project inte­grates the neigh­bour­ing dom­i­nant her­itage brick wall and roof-line, with vibrant moments of red peer­ing through all the outlooks.

The archi­tec­ture of the mod­ern addi­tion is a high­ly restrained approach designed to become engulfed in the gar­den. The rec­ti­lin­ear vol­ume is clad in raw cement sheet, cre­at­ing a har­mo­nious rela­tion­ship with the mason­ry con­struc­tion of the orig­i­nal build­ing. Like­wise, detail­ing and pro­por­tions were used which express­ly relate to the sub­stan­tial nature of the his­toric brick and con­crete details. Tim­ber com­po­nents are added to allow plants to climb the struc­tures and pro­vide shade sur­round­ing the glaz­ing. As the plants grow, the archi­tec­ture becomes obscured, reveal­ing itself only occasionally.

The sig­nif­i­cant per­go­la is posi­tioned to allow quick and sub­stan­tial ver­ti­cal growth pro­vid­ing shade and dap­pled light to the float­ing deck beneath. 

With­in the new vol­ume, the use of a refined dark palette cre­ates an effect of sit­ting beneath the gar­den’s canopy, mak­ing the gar­den a dom­i­nant char­ac­ter­is­tic of the inte­ri­or design. In con­trast to the peri­od por­tion of the home, the liv­ing space is dis­tinct­ly mod­ern in detail and mate­ri­al­i­ty cre­at­ing an ele­vat­ed sense of ameni­ty. An eclec­tic col­lec­tion of light­ing and fur­nish­ing, some sal­vaged from the old home, and some from the client’s exten­sive trav­els, cre­ate a rich narrative.

Look­ing first at the land­scape, the Gardner’s House is a lay­ered expe­ri­ence allow­ing the archi­tec­ture and inte­ri­ors to play a sup­port­ing role, ulti­mate­ly cre­at­ing a rich­er exchange between the home and the client’s pas­sion for plants.