Newburgh Light House

Con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed in Auburn Vil­lage, New­burgh Light House presents a high­ly sus­tain­able hous­ing solu­tion, accom­mo­dat­ing up to 21 peo­ple over 10 lev­els, on an almost un-build­able 150 m² site, right on a his­toric train sta­tion. With no street access, and a north façade direct­ly abut­ting Vic­Track land, com­pli­cat­ed fire, build­ing method­ol­o­gy, acoustics, equi­table light and sta­bil­i­ty require­ments dom­i­nat­ed much of the design process. The response was a mini tow­er typol­o­gy with a full lev­el for each res­i­dence, using glass block as a key mate­r­i­al to achieve fire and light require­ments. Con­cep­tu­al­ly, the translu­cent facades, com­bined with reflec­tive fin­ish­es through­out, form a lantern to the pub­lic realm, whist cre­at­ing an ephemer­al effect with­in the residences.

To address con­struc­tion con­straints, the design embraces mod­u­lar­i­ty and clean sim­ple expres­sion often seen in dense urban con­texts. Using pre­fab­ri­cat­ed ele­ments, north and south façades use glass block pan­els and oper­a­ble recessed glaz­ing­max­imis­ing con­nec­tion to light and views. North and South facades required full translu­cen­cy com­bined with a min­i­mal core to future proof access to light. Pre­fab­ri­cat­ed pan­els of intri­cate met­al detail­ing can be appre­ci­at­ed from with­in, and the adja­cent train station. 

Select­ed for its abil­i­ty to with­stand a train derail­ment, insi­tu con­crete forms the ground lev­el, with inte­grat­ed seat­ing to acti­vate the small cof­fee shop fronting the entry and pedes­tri­an rail­way link. Blue­stone cob­bles con­tin­ue from the lane on one side, through to the pedes­tri­an walk­way on the oth­er, cre­at­ing a com­ple­men­tary pix­i­lat­ed pat­tern, and empha­sis­ing maxmised ground floor per­me­abil­i­ty despite the small plot. 

Our clients’ brief was to appeal to the ​‘leafy sub­urb down siz­er’ mar­ket, typ­i­cal­ly want­i­ng safe, con­ve­nient accom­mo­da­tion with a touch of ​‘inner-city’ feel. This result­ed in a pro­gram­mat­ic arrange­ment of full lev­el apart­ments with lifts open­ing direct­ly into them, and pri­vate car allot­ments. To broad­en the appeal, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the prox­im­i­ty to the train, we sep­a­rat­ed the bed­rooms and bath­rooms, added the poten­tial of a third sep­a­ra­ble room and added a lev­el of storage/​bike space, appeal­ing also to stu­dents or indi­vid­u­als shar­ing. Whilst func­tion­al, this lay­out was also crit­i­cal in achiev­ing required light lev­els in a future sce­nario where pri­vate land to the north should be built out, and results in extreme­ly good cross ventilation.

The lan­guage of the archi­tec­tur­al grid is applied to the inte­ri­or mate­r­i­al palette via tim­ber pan­elling, nat­ur­al stone and ceram­ic tiles. The glass blocks present a unique inter­nal fin­ish that cre­ates a bril­liant chang­ing light effect through the day. Per­me­abil­i­ty of light through the floor plate is achieved with tex­tured glass doors and inter­nal walls. The upper lev­el is a bespoke pent­house, and one res­i­dence has two-lev­els cre­at­ing unique offer­ing despite the build­ing’s mod­u­lar efficiency. 

Bal­anc­ing per­for­mance, scale, and sig­nif­i­cant site con­straints, the project required close col­lab­o­ra­tion between design, con­sul­tant and con­struc­tion teams to make the project fea­si­ble, and achieve beau­ty through simplicity. 

By day, New­burgh Light House presents a high­ly refined col­lec­tion of adapt­able homes, beau­ti­ful­ly lit through­out. By night, it’s a bea­con of light, warm­ing Auburn vil­lage and its his­toric train station.