Steel House/Stone House
The genesis for the project was to create a home which could be jointly owned and occupied by two families. The owner’s were looking to find a property which could provide a village type arrangement where they could co-inhabit; have spaces for working, retreat, seclusion and shared gathering.
The existing Stone House is an 1830s narrow heritage listed terrace on the edge of the city, facing a busy main road with a quieter laneway at the rear. We quickly learnt that we needed to work with the sandstone of the original steel house. The walls are up to 500mm thick and every junction or meeting point of intervention required a new solution. We chiefly left the original house as it was and extended to the rear over the later 1930s brick intervention. Rather than altering any external walls the rear extension was treated as an infill to the additional roof space to create a new bedroom to the stone house and moving the bathroom inboard. The large picture window is this infill with the form of the 1930s brickwork still evident.
The Steel House, a two bedroom secondary dwelling to the rear of the property, in direct contrast is purposefully minimised to steel construction of 8mm plate steel walls at their thinnest. We were working with a very narrow site width and so we looked to maximise the internal volumes and vertical spaces whilst minimising the building envelope. The new rear dwelling activates the laneway behind and bookends a private inner courtyard which becomes an oasis like shared space between the two households.
