Project: Contemporary Timber Clad House
Architects: fyc architects
Location: Richmond, Australia
Size: 163 m2
Year 2017
Photographer: Rachael Dere
Within a constrained inner city block no more than 147sqm, the brief was to construct a single family residence that felt spacious, with a minimum of 3 bedrooms and sizeable courtyard that could provide the potential of onsite carparking.
To accommodate the spatial requirements, the only was up; with sleeping and private quarters upstairs and public living spaces, and guest bedroom downstairs. Sited along north side of a street that are characterised by workers cottages of the early 1900s, its opposite is characterised by residential warehouse conversions, the proposal walks the tightrope between the old and the new.
As a nod to the prolific housing typology of the area, through its use of materials, T2 Residence reinterprets the workers cottage into a contemporary timber clad house that adopts the idyllic image of the ‘house’, carrying it through to the details exampled in the profile of its front fence. Its facade is a play on the features of the cottage that typified the area and the very cottage that occupied the site.
Its recessed entry porch contrasts with the typical porch experience of the corrugated roof addition, whilst the typically recessive single sash window has now been elongated and brought forward through the steel plate surround. Though its solid and private street presence is softened by the absolute use of timber to its exposed facades, its extruded formal gesture is replaced with a fully glazed north facing elevation providing light filled living quarters. A contrast to its predecessor.
The minimal forms and clean lines of the exterior are carried through to the interiors with a clean minimal palette of finishes. The soft whites and greys of the interior spaces are punctuated by the feature black steel and timber stair that carries the residents two flights from the ground through to the concealed roof deck. Black timber battens acting as the balustrade are carried through from the ground floor up reinforcing the link from the public to private areas of the residence.
Beyond the facade, there is a feeling of transparency right through the living areas of the house as soon you step through the front door. The transparency through the stairs to the courtyard also connecting your gaze upstairs directly through to the operable skylight that acts as your doorway to the roof top deck. So whilst the residence aims to reinterpret the workers cottage, it does so with a mix of contrasts for this young family.
