elwood house

6. ELWOOD HOUSE

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A family of two parents and three teenage children asked us to reconfigure their house (which had already been reconfigured many times before) and utilise leftover spaces on the site to allow them to stay living in their community.

The design needed to provide mutual distance or ‘breathing space’ for individuals within the overall togetherness of the family-house unit on a compact site.

The site’s shape is formed by the easement of the Elwood Canal, producing a very small back yard but also a great sense of surrounding open space. The house has no immediate neighbours to the north, south or east sides. It is surrounded by the landscape of the canal, and the sports fields of local primary and secondary schools.

The design seeks to establish new relationships with this sometimes lively public realm, to address the canal as a positive frontage, and to allow mutually-beneficial overlaps between private and public activities.

EDGE

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Architectural expression develops from its particular situation as a corner building, highly exposed to a public thoroughfare along its side boundary. The existing sense of side/ fence is maintained but also made more porous, acknowledging the current role and potential of the canal.

The structure is a braced timber frame over a core-filled blockwork base. Internal plywood lining is utilised as structural bracing. A thin steel plate tension truss over studs works together with internal lining to allow a cantilever for the car to enter diagonally below.

All of this constructional difference is masked over by a uniform surface of timber paling boards, which shift from true fence condition (with gaps) to building condition (insulated).

Over time, the garden planting will grow and merge with the native landscaping of the canal, and the fence will turn the same silver grey as its neighbours.

WALL / FENCE

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The new volume forms a shaded undercroft space facing north-east to the canal. This can be used for carparking, or equally for outdoor workshop activities or casual recreation space.

The gravel surface of the undercroft merges with the easement roadway so that it is unclear exactly where the site boundary lies. Children can cut the corner on the way to school. Chairs can be scattered into the public realm.

UNDERCROFT

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The new room facing the canal is accessed from the midlanding of the existing internal stair. This sets up a series of half-levels which turn the previous distinct separation of ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ into four more even zones of ground level, parents level, childrens level and roof terrace. Each is only a half-flight apart which makes for easier connections but also allows privacy.

The new room is approached obliquely from the stair. The large window provides canal views and light through this space to the deep existing stairwell at the centre of the house.

The stair continues outside. Upstairs, the new roof terrace offers another form of public-private interaction over the fence.

Domestic life appears in the public realm in unexpected ways.

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LEVELS

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section detail 1:10

plan detail 1:10

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The new windows and openings to the canal side reveal certain aspects of the building’s construction, while they also carefully modulate and allow for customisation of view, privacy and ventilation.

Upper level windows have recessed blinds for privacy and aluminium sills which reflect light to the interior. Glazing is tucked in the space between the cladding and the structure. Each opening is designed to be complete in itself, from both sides.

Side shutters with flywire screens allow for cross-ventilation without interrupting the view.

OPENINGS

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Elwood House NMBW Architecture Studio 2006 - 2008 Project Team Nigel Bertram Lucinda McLean Marika Neustupny with: Murray Barker First published Architecture Australia Vol. 97 No.3 May/June 2008 Cover / Index / pp. 82-87 review: Paul Walker Cross Section (NZ) July 2008 Cover/ pp.10-11 Architect Victoria Awards 2008 issue, p.41 Melbourne Architecture Watermark Architecture Guide Philip Goad, 2009, p.266 Awards Architecture Award Residential Architecture, Alterations + Additions Australian Institute of Architects (Vic) Awards 2008 Shortlisted House category World Architecture Festival, Barcelona 2009 Photography Peter Bennetts

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