Work
Writing
CV
“Buildings and Trees”
Led by Louise Wright
Architecture must reconsider and remake its relationship with living things. High on this list is its relationship with trees, long used by architects to form plans and compliment objects, removed because they are in the way of the building, forced into shallow and isolated soil depths, banned for their disruption of footing systems and gutters, removed in bushfire prone areas for their risks to building ignition and so on...
“Something Like a House”
Led by Colby Vexler
Without narrative or extra-disciplinary concepts, we look closely at the suburban flat typology. Here we observe, remark and speculate on the obvious and overlooked aspects of a familiar-ish typology…the six-pack apartment. In doing so, we do not seek to perpetuate its existence in the suburbs, but reconsider its present viability and near future, subtly.
Through a healthy compromise with reality, a re-evaluation of density, ecology, function and comfort will drive our lines of enquiry. For us, the non-typical and unconventional are not synonymous with the unlivable or impractical, but rather critical and careful proposition. Well organised, but still a bit ambiguous, the final outcome will hope to re-perceive the way we see the suburban flat, which could maybe appear something like a house...for 12ish.
“The Walls Around Us” Student Competition
Commissioned by the Robin Boyd Foundation
I have considered a new way to live on this site that addresses the diverse ways we now live through a range of dwelling sizes and types and shared space. My proposal speaks to our immediate concerns as a society of social interaction and support and the environment.
Through the introduction of a perimeter brick wall, the whole site becomes a room, or house, for multiple diverse households in a reimagined use of the existing:
- The front volume becomes a single family house, 2 stories + mezzanine taking advantage of the clerestory windows facing Walsh St (2 bedrooms)
- The rear volume becomes the equivalent of a 2 bedroom apartment
- The undercroft space is enclosed to become a Studio
- The surrounding spaces are programmed with shared amenities facilitated by the brick wall
The introduction of this ‘wall around us’ invites the occupants to live in the inbetween space of inside and outside – a condition Boyd explored consistently in his designs – where the programmed wall activates these spaces in a communal way and so alleviating the smaller interiors as more private and climate controlled spaces. It is a way to be big, while also being small.
The brick wall is the design element that unlocks this potential – solid and defined against the lightness and thinness of Boyd’s experimental structure. While the competition suggested that we imagine the house was not there, I am proposing a reconfiguration of spaces and the creation of new spaces enabled by the brick wall, to create an alternative type of new house. I found spatial richness and experimentation in adding a new layer to reinterpret and extend Boyd’s concepts for contemporary conditions and households.
An important part of the original design is the way the house responds to the sloping land, where the front volume overlooks the courtyard, the second volume and beyond across the sloping roof to the long view so that the courtyard and view beyond join. To extend this landscape condition I propose that the slope be reinstated, and the site be somewhat repaired with indigenous vegetation, intensifying in the courtyard as a dense landscape. Above this slope, in the ephemeral indoor/outdoor space – imagined as a type of wrap around veranda – I have introduced a grate mesh walkway so that the landscape and access may co-exist and the site is accessible.
The proposal reimagines the re-use of the house and the repair of the site on the unceded land of the Kulin Nation. It densifies the site from one to three households. It is generous in amenity and shared communal space.