Casa Famiglia
Architecture Residential Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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Description
This is a family home, passed from mother and father to their sons.
It served as the first family home and as the sons got older it became the house of their early adulthood.
Shared at different times, it has always been an important place that enabled lives and built prosperity. And as the sons have started families of their own, it has become the primary residence of one son and his growing family whom have all become our Clients.
We met our Clients at a point where the house needed to change, to grow a little in size and to allow for an extended personality which reflected the new generation.
Designing homes is never easy, but given the history and sentiments here it was a challenge to mediate between honouring the past while giving space to new memories and new family members. To ensure that what was introduced had meaning but that it also complimented the existing. The easier way to refer to this project is that it involved alterations and additions to a 1930s dwelling.
The design solution was to celebrate the transitions between old and new. These are marked with copper thresholds and patterned brickwork. As well as by giving form to the new, through the gesture of a large roof collecting new and old external and internal spaces together.
Given the period of the original home, the works also need to bring light and a visibility to the garden, an incredibly important feature in supervising young children. The extension sought to remedy these issues, bringing a north facing skylight into the center of the plan and opening the house onto the backyard.
The quality of the interiors in the extension, were seen as opportunities to interlace new voices into the fabric of the home.
Questions and Answers
What were the key challenges?
The original home was dark, internalised with inward looking kitchen and living areas and had no connection to the garden, all aspects of which the design would need to remedy.
In addition to the residence, the site contained an existing rear brick garage and music studio, both built at different times and constraining the available site area.
A modest budget for the project also placed conditions upon the responsible scale of interventions to be explored.
What were the solutions?
In resolving all of the above, the design employed the following key attributes:
• A Layering of Past Together with the Present
Given the history and sentiments here it was a challenge to mediate between honouring the past while giving space to new memories and new family members.
The project achieved this layering through making the new distinct from the existing. As well as expressing and celebrating the transitions between them. Externally this is seen in the patterned brickwork and internally with the copper threshold, both elements drawing the eye to moments of fun and wonder.
New voices where interlaced into the project interiors. The use of colour, referencing various eras and conceiving joinery as furniture gave permanence to new voices while extending the intergenerational history of the home.
• Making Simple an otherwise Congested Site
All the new spaces were collected under one roof form, giving singularity to what would otherwise be a complex interaction between the new and the existing garage and music studio to the rear.
Raking in one direction, the roof is introduced to the street as a covering to the carport. From this view it is barely visible and is respectful of the period home and its contribution to the street.
• Remedying the Problems of the Original Home
The highest point of the roof faces and opens onto the backyard. This facilitates large double glazed sliding doors, allowing diffuse south light in. The new kitchen, dining and living areas are contained within this space and orientated towards the view and garden. Additional daylight and warmth is brought into the centre of the house through the introduction of north facing clerestory windows.
• Meeting the Budget
The budget was approached strategically, considering how to minimise the amount of works required to meet the project and project ambitions.
The design retained the existing front house and renovated portions to the rear to achieve the additional bedroom and wet areas. The extension area backs onto and seams with these renovated zones, locating an open plan kitchen, dining and living areas that were facilitated by a tight footprint made more generous by purpose built joinery, high ceilings and correctly placed windows.
What are the sustainability features?
• Responsible Design
Sustainability is integral to the work of our practice, it is not in addition to but conceptually embedded with the project.
The design employs the following responsible elements; thermal mass, double glazing, north facing windows, appropriately sized eaves, hydronic heating, timber windows, recycled timber and bricks and motorised high level windows (for cross ventilation).
The size of the extension is modest, building on efficient planning and clever reuse of the existing building.
Details
| Project size | 160 m2 |
| Site size | 580 m2 |
| Completion date | 2016 |
| Building levels | 1 |
Project team
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Christina Bozsan | |
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BOARCH | Architects |