The first episode features a Melbourne couple faced with a dilemma familiar to many parents. With three young kids they quickly found themselves out growing their small terraced home. The options were either move from a street they loved or transform their block of land into a home for the future. They decided to stay and gave the architect, Andrew Maynard, a testing brief - design a playful home that, like the family, would grow and change over the next 30 years. The result is certainly futuristic and at the home’s heart is an Aussie backyard transformed by a man-made hill. The award-winning design is arresting and certainly got all the neighbours talking!
"I want a house for a car. I want to be able to see my car as I walk around the home." Cherise Collins has had a passion for cars since she was 15 and to date has bought and sold over 160! When she was briefing her architect she said she would prefer to be out driving than gardening. And she didn't want doors in the house. As Architect Damian Campagnaro says, "I've had all sorts of unusual requests from owners, but this is the first time I'd been asked for a house to be built around a car!" These are not the only unusual aspects for the house design. The site Cherise had chosen, with sweeping views across the plain to the sea, was on a very steep block of land in the Adelaide hills. She contacted builders but they just drove past and didn't stop because the location was just so steep. One day, by chance, she bumped into Damian at a coffee shop and told him about the block. He checked it out that same day and came back with: "All you need is a brave bobcat driver and I know one!" So began a partnership between owner and architect/builder which created not only a stunning design with a room for a car, but also covered all aspects of the build and interior decoration, right down to the paintings - painted by Damian.
What will happen to a Victorian goldfields ruin when the architect’s first thought is, “What am I going to do that that?” Hard-working Melbournites Wayne and Chris spent many a weekend getting out to the country. They came to love the area around Ullina, near the towns of Smeaton and Clunes, so much that they started looking for a property. After 18 months they found their block, complete with an 1860s ruin. They didn’t want to live in an old, dark house but loved the ruin’s stonework and overall mystique. Their idea was to include as much of the ruin as possible into a contemporary and light filled design. They approached architect, Ken Charles, with a very basic room plan and a photo of the ruin. Ken developed the design with Wayne and Chris to create an innovative and imaginative home. Goldfields House has rescued a piece of Australia’s gold rush history and brought it uniquely into the 21st Century. Wayne’s background is in building and project managing. He and Chris already knew Ken – they gave him his first job, a warehouse conversion. That was some 20 years ago and the men have kept up their association, working closely together on a number of development projects which have often included residences for Wayne and Chris. The key to their relationship, says Wayne, is the trust that they have built up working together over all those years. An innovative architectural design has preserved a piece of Australia’s gold rush history by transforming an 1860s ruin in country Victoria near Ullina into a contemporary and light-filled home.
The Great Wall of Warburton is the backbone of a house built to give its owner a new life. Peter Falvey's busy life in Melbourne as a foreign aid project director made him yearn for the tranquillity of the country and he found land in the Warburton Valley. His vision for a house was that it should be serene, peaceful with a reflective ambience, fit into the environment and be somewhere that one day he could live full-time. To achieve this end, Peter worked very closely with his architect Simon Knott (as well as Julian Kosloff and Tim Black). The development of the design and the build itself was an 'adventure' for everyone. Before construction started Simon camped on the block to get a sense of the site, and this co-operative and collaborative spirit was there throughout the project. Arriving at the property, the long driveway ends up at a blank, abstract wall - the Great Wall of Warburton. The house is entered via a large timber door in the middle of the great wall and, upon opening, the spectacular view of the Warburton Valley is immediately revealed. Throughout the house the wall acts as an omnipresent anchoring backbone and is visible from every space. Another key design element is that by sliding just one door, a large four bedroom house closes down to become a one bedroom space. It was Peter who had the central idea that the house should slowly reveal itself and be a surprise, but it was Simon who designed Peter's idea into a very special home.
How do you build the perfect house in the Glass House Mountains when you can only visit the site twice during its construction? Having always lived in big cities, international banker Robert Hadley and his wife Anne wanted somewhere quiet to build and when they stumbled across a block in the Glass House Mountains with spectacular views, they knew they had to have it. The couple have an interest in Zen gardens and in Japanese design. They wanted their house to be tranquil and a retreat from the hustle of big city living. They challenged architects Lindy Atkin and Stephen Guthrie to create a haven protected from the strong winds whisking up the escarpment while still taking in the views. Over the 16 months it took Maleny House to rise out of the ground, Robert and Anne were living in Romania and were only able to visit twice. But with an abiding interest in architecture they had supplied a detailed brief to Lindy and Stephen. Over the internet a great relationship and friendship developed between owners and architects as they shared their thoughts about the process. An oasis of peace is now evident in the resulting house, especially in the sanctuary of the courtyard space which is central to the building and protected from the wind. The property's 200 tonne stone wall took six months to construct with a stone mason placing every stone individually to show off its special beauty. The result is a house of simple beauty, combining an Asian aesthetic with an Australian touch.
Castlecrag is a house about memories. Perched on a steep escarpment overlooking Sugarloaf Bay in Sydney's Middle Harbour, this award-winning house is a re-imagined version of the original family home built in the 1940s by the current owner's grandfather. The house has been redesigned to suit a family with four children while preserving as much of the original as possible. The new house constantly harks back to the old, from the re-creation of grandfather's fish tank and recycling of floorboards, to retaining an original wall and fireplace. Already recycled in the 40s, the bricks were also carefully recycled back into the new house. The design by award-winning architects Rachel Neeson and the late Nick Murcutt is arranged over four levels stepping down the long and narrow site. There's a shared family space at the entry level, a parents retreat above, children are one level down and there's a flat for guests on the lowest level. It all spills out to a swimming pool. But it's the planning that is really impressive and perfectly responds to the three remarkable qualities of the site - a large sandstone rock shelf that partially shields the house from the street, a bushland reserve studded with beautiful pink angophora trees and the view over water and Castle Cove below. Designed to last a lifetime and full of family memories, this is the house where Luke Hastings and his wife Jo Nolan will watch their children grow up.
A neglected inner-city Melbourne terrace house originally designed by the notable colonial architect Joseph Reid in 1856 is transformed with a brilliant blending of old and new, and the addition of an atrium. Yvonne Young is a country woman who, amongst other things, breeds horses on her property at Tonimbuk (West Gippsland). When her children moved to the city, Yvonne found herself spending more time in Melbourne and decided a city house was needed. She purchased the house in East Melbourne for its central location and fell in love with the possibilities of restoring it. Yvonne wanted to restore the exterior to its original splendour but introduce to her inner-city house things you find in the country - space, light and air. Together with architects David and Jacqueline Wagner and builder John Alessi, she spent over four years breathing new life back into the building. Her brief for space and light was achieved with a three-story atrium designed around the concept of a Roman villa. The feel of the landscape is echoed in all of the house details. The colour palette is earthy, and wood is used extensively throughout. Terracotta louvres are featured both inside and out, bringing the outside in and echoing details of traditional Australian rural housing. From its carefully restored facade that recognises its history, to the atrium which echoes a Roman villa, this is a house that both looks back to the past and forward to the future.
Imagine a home that is shiny, sparkling, a bit sexy and good enough to take on your arm to the Logies, that's the Smith House - a 'trophy home'. Designed by the controversial 'wonder-kid' architect Cassandra Fahey, the Smith House is the result of a very practical brief from its sport-loving owners, Darren and Serana Smith. Darren and Serana asked for a four bedroom home with large living spaces, cinema and a garage for three cars. They also suggested shyly that they wanted a 'trophy home'. In choosing Cassandra, renowned for her 'Pamela Anderson' home designed for Sam Newman, they were on a path towards an unorthodox design. You enter the house through a huge 'golden book style' doorway into a mirrored hall. There is a glass mural of a well-endowed Ian Thorpe, a living room with a golden soft-furnished ceiling, and an 'Aladdin's Cave' for 'Alice in Wonderland' in the children's bedrooms. This is a house with many playful elements designed by an adventurous and quirky architect for clients who were willing to take the risk. The result is a home like no other in Australia.
"The house operates as a piece of sculpture in the middle of the bush. It's a little bit like a tank stand that might have fallen over." Some locals nicknamed it 'the plane crash' when it was under construction - and the owners admit their dream holiday home is a sculptural artwork that divides opinion. Brother and sister Derek and Marian Drew built the house in bushland only 100 metres from a beautiful Queensland surf beach near the town of Agnes Water. As teenagers, they had enjoyed idyllic camping trips to the same spot. Now, they wanted to replicate those holidays - but with a lot more luxury. When planning the home, builder/designer Simon Laws took a field trip with Derek and Marian to visit their old camp site and the nearby sugar cane mill. The mill was being demolished and its industrial shapes partly influenced the final design. Industrial shapes aside, the home is luxuriously appointed with a high-end kitchen and a stylish bathroom opening onto the forest. The home's main living area is contained in a cylindrical 'pod' which some locals joke is reminiscent of an aircraft fuselage! The bedrooms are connected to the main living area by walkways which replicate the way in which sleeping and cooking areas are separated in camping sites. One of the home's most eye-catching features is a circular window which controls the ventilation in the main living area. The owners describe it as "luxury camping" with all rooms having a strong connection to the outside bushland.
This week’s Dream Build episode shows how a very brave owner took her home from the 1800s to the 21st century. The result is a daring building that uses older materials in remarkable new ways. Having restored her old (1850s) Victorian farmhouse cottage, Ellie Nielsen wondered how she could put on an extension without compromising the integrity of the old building. To solve this problem, Ellie engaged Rodney Eggleston, an architect she’s known since he was just a boy. His solution left her gob-smacked (or dumbfounded). Rodney scrapped plans for an extension and instead designed a separate annexe – with a striking folded copper roof and radical reinterpretations of materials from the 19th century. For instance, the new building has pressed metal ceilings, old-style lights and a kitchen which celebrates the use of grocery store advertisements from the 1800s. The result is an inspiring and striking building which contrasts with, and also complements, the original farmhouse cottage.
K House has been globally recognised as one of the world’s great modern beach houses. Sited on the Victorian surf coast the house has a shape derived from the ‘K’ of the owner’s name - Kronberg . The ’K’ has been sliced and reorientated to produce a house that some say looks like a ship while others think it resembles an explosion. Designed as a four-bedroom family holiday home with the potential to become a retirement residence, K House is all about the ambience of beach living and has extensive decking and spectacular ocean views. Originally the exterior was to be bright red however local government regulations determined it had to be grey; a grey that the architect wryly insists is still a ‘shade of red’. Bright red lives on in the kitchen and in the dining room where a huge bright red bookcase in the shape of an inverted K holds part of the owners’ extensive book collection. K House has an exterior that excites and challenges, with an interior that is all about the easy life.
Shane Hendriks is a builder and designer who came up with a unique idea for building his family home while mucking around with his son's building blocks. His house consists of five cubes arranged in an ark to maximise the northerly aspect of the sun, with a sense of the cubes rolling and tumbling. There is even a 'floating cube' seemingly suspended between the second and third more prominent cubes on the ground. Shane didn't want to install solar panels on the tiled exterior so he developed unique solar 'trees' to the sun to maximise energy efficiency. Inside is a range of technological innovations, from fingerprint entry, a tracking power point system, and a natural wall ventilation system. From the outside the house resembles an adventure playground, but inside it is compact and liveable. "I had an opportunity to do things with this house that I couldn't do with a client - push the limits and extremities of the design itself as well as how the house works and functions," says Shane. Shane's wife Caroline says, "People who visit for the first time marvel at what it must be like to live here. But for us, it was always going to be our family home, where our sons could grow up with plenty of space to run around in."
What do you do with a heritage listed church, where the heritage requirements dictate that nothing of the new structure can touch the walls of the heritage listed building? Undeterred, Mark Carnegie employed architect Simon Swaney and they used these limitations to drive the design and convert a church into a modern home for him and his daughters. A new structure was designed for inside the church - an inner house. This is freestanding, lightweight, and designed for off-site fabrication, and eventual disassembly. This 'house' is erected on a platform built over the raking floor of the church with a pair of two storey cubes flanking the central space. These cubes contain sleeping accommodation and ancillary facilities whilst the central space provides living and dining areas. It allows the church's dimensions to be experienced while still providing wonderful liveable spaces. Three rows of pews have been retained to permit occasional public performances on the renowned church organ. The walls of the new building emit a soft glow at night. The floor of the space is heated and an ethanol fire provides glowing warmth avoiding penetrations through the roof. This is a contemporary installation designed around the formality and symmetry of the original space. The project was completed in 14 weeks and restoration work to the original fabric continues.
Nestled in the suburbs of Perth Marimekko House is a home designed by Ariane Prevost for her own family of five adults (including her three adult children). While essentially quite modest in budget and size the house features bold and innovative design incorporating landscaping, courtyards and a rooftop garden to create multiple light-filled living spaces. The house is entered through an oversize pivot door which is hidden behind a weathered steel facade designed to be an intriguing departure from the traditional streetscape. Intended to surprise and intrigue the house features a number of movable glass walls which blur the difference between outside and inside and allows the building to be opened up to create a ‘pavilion’, taking advantage of Perth’s abundant sunshine. The house itself is across two levels with the lower level incorporating three bedrooms, a kitchen/lounge area and a living room. Upstairs is the parents’ bedroom and study plus a substantial passive thermal roof garden which is large enough to grow vegetables and entertain in. Ariane’s approach of combining architecture, interior design and landscaping together along with an innovative use of industrial materials and finishes combine to make this a home which is easy to maintain, light and airy and has a flexibility perfectly suited to a family of five busy adults.
Why would you name a house "Flipped"? Felicity Jansen is the owner and has the nickname Flip. Plus her new home 'flips' the layout of the original 60's house on the site. The new house takes its style from the 1960's design which Felicity originally fell in love with. But this house was impractical for their family life and was demolished to make way for the "Flipped House". Felicity and architect Steve Koolloos have not only drawn inspiration from the 60's but also from the work of Felicity’s architect father. Her father’s interest in Mid-Century Modernism, with its love of natural products, is reflected in the use of stone, glass, wood and concrete. Features like the carved wooden front door are a replica of the one her father designed and made for Felicity’s childhood family home. Having grown up surrounded by gardens, a garden was important to Felicity. This has been created with circles of concrete garden rooms which contrast with the hard-edged lines of the house itself. Flipped House is a home which draws on the joy of 60's designs and the Mid 20th Century Modernism focus on natural products.
Imagine a house perched amongst the gum trees looking like a giant silkworm cocoon. This is Cocoon House, a marriage of art and architecture. Its creators describe it as a “sculpture in the round” that can be appreciated from all angles. But what’s it like to live in? Find out when Dream Build returns to ABC1 on Sunday 9th June. The home is a wonderful and whimsical weekender created by Cat Macleod and Michael Bellemo – a husband and wife team who are architects as well as sculptors. Located in the Otway Ranges on the Great Ocean Road, the home appears to float between the hills and the ocean. On Dream Build you’ll discover how the couple overcame the challenges posed by designing & building this uniquely-shaped home in the Australian bush.
Americans Mickey and Lanie Clark have built a remarkable bushland home after a two-year work trip turned into a 20 year love affair with the Australian landscape. Beside towering eucalypts and a tranquil billabong, their uniquely long and narrow home opens almost completely to the countryside they value so highly. Before building, architect Fergus Scott camped and fished at the site with the American owners and eventually they decided to create a home resembling a campsite in the bushland. The bathroom opens completely to the outdoors and features a luxurious tub that is a key part of the house. “My favourite part of the house is the bathroom and specifically the bathtub because I am a bathtub person,” says owner Lanie Clark. “I believe you can divide the world into shower people and bathtub people. Every opportunity I get, I take a bath!” The property houses the couple’s art collection as well as animals including goats, dogs, horses and chickens. And this strong and stylish residence is up to the job of being a very practical country house. “We didn’t want a prissy home,” says Lanie. “It needed to be a house that could take a bit of battering!”
The owner of The Black Box is a self-confessed "boy from the 'burbs" who wanted to make his architectural mark - in the suburbs. Wayne Timms’ home prompts passionate debate about privacy because its front consists of 4 see-through tilt-up doors covered in a perforated black mesh. The architect wanted the house to open fully to the street so the home and its owners would engage with their neighbourhood. And the concept works! Beyond the front screens, the house opens up even further. The core of the home has no roof: a courtyard that’s part of all living areas. Wayne’s wife, Leisa, speaks of only one area (the bathroom) having 4 solid walls. External curtains are used to control space and privacy. There’s also a one-of-a-kind attic. The home’s exposed timber, steel and brickwork highlights the desire of architect James Russell to make the building structure part of the home’s aesthetic. In many homes it’s rendered, plastered or painted out. In the episode, the architect & owners talk about the need for good design in the ‘burbs, notions of privacy and connection to the outdoors, and their desire to avoid having a sprawling home with multiple rooms that fracture family life.
Richard Cole is an architect with over twenty years experience and he seems to specialize in building magnificent homes in impossible locations! Richard was presented with the ultimate challenge when his retired but very energetic parents, Terry & Tina, asked him if he could build them their ‘forever’ home. The site chosen in North Sydney has sweeping views, large Angophora trees and a sandstone rock-face running through it! Richard says: “The word ‘Angophora’ comes from the Greek word which means ‘vessel’ and I do like to think of the house as a vessel that contains the everyday life of people. In this instance, it contains the lives of my parents”. Richard has created a masterpiece over three levels, incorporating the sandstone escarpment as a feature throughout the bottom floor bedroom, bathroom and study that has wonderful thermal properties for the house. On the top floor, extensive use of wood has created a compact but spacious living area incorporating the master bedroom & en suite, dining area, kitchen, living room and outdoor deck. When the weather is right, the panelled walls slide back to create an open air canopy that takes in the city views as well as the beautiful trees and garden that adorn the property. Future proofing for the ageing process, all doors are double hinged and wide enough to accommodate the use of a wheel chair if the need arises, as is the purpose built lift that runs from the drive-in garage at street level to each floor of the house. Richard sums up: “Undertaking a project for your parents is a wonderful thing to go through. It was very humbling and gratifying to see how much trust they put in me, both personally and professionally. And you deliver on that trust”.
Owners and husband/wife team Justin Lindsell and Helen McBeth wanted to fulfil a lifelong dream of owning a glass pavilion pole home in the picturesque town of Crafers in the Adelaide Hills. Little did they know that this would be the start of a 10 year journey and not only would their dream design dramatically change, but there would also be 2 new additions to the family, son Rex and daughter Mae. Helen and Justin first approached architect Max Pritchard because they loved his philosophy of 'touching the earth lightly'. But it took 2 designs rejected by the council due to fire safety regulations before Max's concrete 'fire proof bunker' was finally approved. "Instead of touching the earth lightly, we carved a massive hole in the side of the hill!" says owner Helen. But she states, "She's still a sexy beast!" referring to the lines of the fire proof bunker home curved out of concrete to follow the contours of the land. This modest house has been designed with fire safety at the forefront including; a concrete roof with pebbles for insulation, fire proof metal roller screens that cover all windows and rainwater tanks for accessing water. The neighbours have already mentioned, "If there was a fire they will be a party at our house", Helen says. Internally, this is definitely a robust family home with exposed brick walls, concrete ceiling and floors which allow the children to play and ride around on their scooters without risk of damage to the surfaces. Even though Helen and Justin wouldn't want to go through the long 10 year process again, they both agreed that it is the best family home for the life they are now living.
Architect Jesse Judd designed this beautiful and engaging holiday lodge for his own family. The first impression is of caravan style building, with a glowing red/orange radiance, achieved by lining the internal living area with meticulously stained plywood. "During design, I thought of the house as being like a caravan or one of those fluorescent tents people go camping in," he says. Given the remote location, Jesse decided to keep construction as simple as possible. In order to reduce the number of tradespeople needed on site, he had eight steel portal frames prefabricated - skilfully curved to the desired degree - then trucked through the bush to the clearing. Once these "bones" were erected, the builder filled in the gaps using plywood sheeting, metal decking, corrugated steel and insulation. In planning the house, Jesse dug deep into Australia's cultural memory of lean-to tin sheds and lazy verandas. A rolled plane of corrugated iron encloses the main living space with its face of windows which look out to the surrounding forest of messmate gums. The living area is an open space with the kitchen and its big square stainless steel bench at one end. A smaller curve, one room wide, encloses the sleeping and washing wing and it just slips into the larger one forming a moulded bulkhead above the kitchen wall. The bedroom wing is an efficient, Japanese-like set of rooms that share a corridor, fully glazed to the north, with repeating black aluminium framed sliding doors. The sliding doors are also to the bathroom and in the main living area and allow cross ventilation when the doors are open. Ply wood is used to clad the interior and is also used for key joinery surfaces, but other than the red/orange of the living room area walls, it is stained a grey brown, more akin to the surrounding forest. Safety precautions also had a bearing on the design. The area is prone to bush fires - the blackened trunks of nearby trees are a constant reminder - a
The Stone Age collides with the Space Age in this Dream Build home at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast. The house combines two contrasting styles representing the differing personalities of its husband and wife owners, Tom and VV Quinn. Architect Tim Guymer says the home’s once-bare waterfront site provided little inspiration for the design of the house, so instead he took inspiration from the personalities of Tom & VV. The combination of the elements is unique; the result, extraordinary. The base of the home uses rough-cut limestone and massive timber beams from an old Qld sugar mill. The architect felt these earthy elements would mirror the “earth mother” nature of owner ‘VV’ Quinn. In contrast, the high-tech roof represents the edgier, business-focussed nature of ‘VV’s husband, Tom. The roof & ceiling are an inverted pyramid made from an aluminium composite material which appears to “float” above the limestone like a futuristic spacecraft. The roof is held in place by half-tonne cast bronze brackets set against a plate glass wall. Like a good marriage, the home’s contrasting elements have combined to produce a courageous, inspiring, and stimulating design.
Sitting in a streetscape of Victorian style cottages typical of Melbourne, Model House doesn't stand out - and that's the point of the design for this new modern home. Architect, Jeremy McLeod says, "The house really is like a stage, the facade of the house is the set which faces the audience while 'backstage', in the house itself, all of the living and working gets done." Designed for a theatre designer and a drama teacher, the essentially open plan ground floor is dominated by a huge red velvet curtain that can be drawn through the entire floor to thermally insulate and create rooms. The upper floor has two bedrooms, each with their own balconies and a bathroom while the ground floor has a lounge/study space plus the kitchen/dining area and a small TV room with a courtyard. Model House is not a 'showy house' but it has an imagination about it with a great attention paid to detail; all of the windows are different sizes and all carefully placed to frame views, the mild steel towel and toilet roll holders were specifically designed. The house features robust materials with extensive use of concrete, mild steel and recycled timber. All of these materials give the house a feeling of simplicity and understated elegance.
Built on the site of the owner's childhood home, 'Link House' is house designed to last. Sited on a bay in Sydney's inner west, the house is designed to maximize the spectacular views of the bay, and is built as two forms with the living quarters separated from the sleeping quarters. This was an important part of the brief for this young and busy family who prioritise entertaining. These two main areas are joined by a glass link, spanning a central fish pond. The public space of the living area is housed in a glass pavilion using minimal structure and large glass folding doors which can be opened to bring the outside in. The pavilion is designed in the true sense of the word: surrounded by gardens, terraces and breezeways emphasising the bay environment, the sun, the air and the views. The design attempts to blur the boundary between the inside and the outside whilst maintaining a strong sense of distinction between privacy and openness. The sleeping quarters building is spread across 3 floors and includes bedrooms, a lounge for the kids and a media room. Construction methods and material selection were influenced not only by the architect, Renato D'Ettore but also its owners, who expressed a preference for low maintenance materials. The owners had seen one of Renato's earlier concrete houses and loved it. "We considered that concrete's extreme resilience, excellent thermal properties and its textural qualities were ideal for the design of the house," Renato D'Ettore says. Further, concrete allowed for a ready-made finish, largely eliminating the use of renders and paint, as well as giving the surface finishes an instant patina. Wall and floor finishes, such as polished concrete floors and unfilled honed travertine were selected for their durability and tactile qualities.
When one family bought two neighbouring houses with both houses in need of repair and update, a novel solution to their restoration was found; to create a single building but with separate living spaces wrapped around a central spine and with a rear fence that slides away to create one large backyard out of two. Two houses in one, two families or one. HOUSE House is a design that defies the fact that Australian houses are now the biggest in the world, for here is a house that reduced its footprint as it was renovated. Melbourne is flat, with low density. There are few topographical or spatial constraints to force houses to have a small footprint and to stack rooms and spaces above. In cities like Tokyo, London and Amsterdam living vertically is a way of life that generates unique housing while also making the most of a densely packed urban condition. In greater Melbourne space is readily available which has led to predominately wide flat single storey homes. But, says architect Andrew Maynard, what if we introduce a footprint restriction? What if we build a tall thin structure that maximizes the small back yard? We will produce spaces that, though familiar in many parts of the world, are unfamiliar in Australia; tall, tight cavernous spaces with light cascading from above. With its unique and imaginary design, this inner city house points the way to a new approach to 21st century urban Australian home design. With its timber walls and light well, its functional but small bedroom spaces, this is a house that challenges us to think about the way we live.
It would usually be a TV disaster: on the day before filming began, spray-paint vandals “tagged” a home being profiled by Dream Build in Fitzroy. But this was The Graffiti House – so the damage was quickly painted over by a professional street artist whose graffiti stretches from one end of this unique home to the other. Fitzroy is known for its extraordinary street art; prestigious architect John Wardle is not. Owners Pearly & Trevor appreciated the area’s artwork and vibrant street culture – and wanted to incorporate it in the house design, so John Wardle embraced the chance to include graffiti in this inner-city Melbourne home. It was a remarkable chance encounter which paved the way to take this further. Artist Paul Round was caught by the owners painting graffiti on their wall before the main construction work began. Instead of painting over his graffiti, John, Pearly and Trevor commissioned Paul to undertake additional painting at the home, adding to the actual design elements of the house. In the finished design, the graffiti flows inside the home, is on the walls of the covered court yard and in some respects IS the walls with the front of the house having raised bricks representing the photographic “pixels” of an enlarged picture of the graffiti itself. The graffiti is, however, only one part of this beautifully conceived, understated design. The home consists of two well designed pavilions facing each other across the courtyard; an oasis in busy Fitzroy.
The Wolf House is designed by an architect who loves his family, his Star Wars collection and his classic cars – and it certainly shows in the design of his new dream home. Architect & owner Taras Wolf moved around a lot as a child and he wanted to create a house that would provide deep roots for his three young children. He is also an avid Star Wars fan who wanted the building to incorporate the sci-fi figurines of his childhood. And he wanted a house he could drive his collection of cars into. Taras is so sentimental he kept 20% of his old house and incorporated it into the new house. He kept this old bedroom wing because it was where he came up with so many ideas for the new house he built on the site. The new home subtly reflects the South East Asian roots of Taras and his wife Rebecca. As in Asia, the home features smaller bricks & large eaves, and can open up to the outside weather. This is a family home with a big heart, blending unique design with the owner’s unique collections.