Table of contents for Issue 151 April 2023 in Houses

Balance. From self-help books and diets to tips for juggling commitments in our work and personal lives, balance is frequently touted as the solution in our quest for a contented life. Our yearning for calm and restorative homes is often realized through carefully calibrated balance, this time between prospect (the desire to look out and survey our environment) and refuge (a need to feel safe and protected). Refuge is a guiding idea in Merricks Farmhouse by Michael Lumby with Nielsen Jenkins (cover, page 20), where a large courtyard offers shelter and containment on an exposed coastal site. Gardens designed by Franchesca Watson and Robyn Barlow provide an enviable backdrop to daily life. Prospect is a challenge for inner-suburban homes, where tight sites and looming neighbours demand inventive solutions. In Sunday…

Looking back, Sydney-based furniture designer Tom Fereday concedes that having an antiques dealer father and ceramicist mother may have influenced his choice of career – but growing up in the United Kingdom, he had no awareness of the design industry at all. “Like many people, I didn’t know what I wanted to study,” Tom says. “I didn’t know design existed, or that people design objects.” After only one year of study at Wimbledon School of Art, Tom’s focus shifted and he returned to Sydney, his birthplace, to study industrial design. It was the right decision, Tom says: “I really thrive under constraints when I’m making something. The problem-solving is really fascinating to me.” Once Tom finished university, he honed this approach at several companies and studios – including Schamburg and…

Paul Matthew Writer Paul is an architect, educator and researcher with a strong interest in understanding and reducing the environmental impacts of new and existing buildings. He is currently teaching architectural technology and researching the whole-of-life environmental impacts of residential buildings in South East Queensland at the University of Queensland. Saskia Wilson Photographer Saskia Wilson is a Sydney-based photographer and educator working across documentary, fine arts and commercial practices. Her work is characterized by a refined sense of balance, vibrancy, contemplation and authenticity, expressed through uniquely Australian locations and colour schemes. David NeusteinWriter David Neustein is a director of Other Architects, an innovative Sydney office that was jointly awarded the 2021 Houses Awards Emerging Practice prize. He is an advisor to the Living Cities Forum and Cemeteries and Crematoria…

The fortified tower and the walled garden are intriguing motifs for a suburban house extension. On one hand, these elements are essentially defensive, speaking to ideas of individualism, security and territory. On the other, they are ancient city archetypes that capture the collective imagination, inviting a public gaze. With its two small towers bracketing a screened courtyard, Studio Bright’s Garden Tower House brings to mind both of these possible readings. This recently completed project is located in Melbourne’s Cremorne, a small urban enclave located on the northern bank of the Birrarung (Yarra River) and a short distance from the CBD. This area of Wurundjeri land was occupied as a colonial pleasure garden and then a private asylum during the nineteenth century before being subdivided into housing and factories. Today, its…

In an empty gallery space, a set of red stairs descends from above, not quite reaching the ground. Transparent and diaphanous, the fabric that covers the stairs also engulfs the ceiling. This incredibly atmospheric installation is Staircase-III (2010), one of the most memorable works of South Korean-born, London-based artist Do Ho Suh. Where an architect designing stairs must make function-driven decisions about materiality, scale and orientation, Suh chose instead to reflectively recreate the narrow wooden structure that connected his New York apartment, where Suh lived for 18 years, with his landlord’s. In a short film made in 2016 (Art 21, Extended Play Episode #242: Do Ho Suh: “Rubbing / Loving”), Suh speaks fondly of that landlord, Arthur, who encouraged Suh to do whatever he wanted to the apartment in the…

Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months. Now that everything had returned to normal, he was surprised that there had been no obvious beginning, no point beyond which their lives had moved into a clearly more sinister dimension. J. G. Ballard, High-Rise, 1975 The opening lines of J. G. Ballard’s famous novel refer to a period of turmoil in which a fictional modernist apartment building in London is both stage and character. The building at 99 Spring Street in Melbourne’s political precinct, which was completed in 1971, four years before High-Rise’s publication, was not the vessel for a dystopian societal collapse – but it was…

This project began in 2011, in our practice’s first year of fully fledged operation, and it was without question the one that put us on the map. I officially opened Philip Stejskal Architecture in April and Kim and Phil came to see me in August. The design of Bellevue Terrace Alterations and Additions (see Houses 101) brought together several ideas I had been exploring in previous years of part-time practice, as well as lessons learnt while working in Australia’s tropical north. But it was our clients’ involvement in the project that really made it great. Kim and Phil’s home was a small worker’s cottage in Fremantle, and their brief was for a flexible space at the back of the house that allowed them to make the most of their garden.…

When the owners of North Perth House decided to expand and renovate their somewhat neglected Federation home, they approached the project as an opportunity to create something unique. They engaged Simon Pendal Architect (SPA) because they were taken with the practice’s thoughtful, inventive work and attention to detail. Together, SPA and the clients planned renovations for the existing house and demolition works to make space at the rear of the site for a generous addition. In 2020, construction began – and so did the COVID-19 pandemic. The uncertainty of that time made the homeowners question whether they should continue with the project or put it on hold. Reassurances from SPA and the builder, however, convinced them to proceed, and they are grateful that they did. Arriving at North Perth House,…

Find more residential products: selector.com and productnews.com.au 01 Dulux autumn forecast As the weather cools, autumnal hues feel right at home. Warm neutrals and muted yellow-greens are integral to Connect, one of three palettes in the 2023 Colour Forecast. Connect features nature-inspired hues such as ‘Stilted Stalks’ and ‘Beaten Tracks.’ dulux.com.au 02 Silhouette panelling Silhouette by Easycraft is a range of decorative panelling providing depth and texture. Featuring coved, convex and channelled profiles, Silhouette inspires material-led design and incorporates natural shapes and shadows with its hard-wearing materials. easycraft.com.au 03 Still Life wallpaper An homage to brutalism, the Still Life wallpaper collection from Ornami features rigorous, geometric patterns and bold colours, along with unexpected hints of stylized flora. Decisive and sculptural, Still Life reinterprets the monumental heft of brutalist architecture. ornami.it…

Sporting a bushman’s beard, black shirt and jeans and R. M. Williams boots, architect Brad Swartz has a quiet presence. A modern-day minimalist, his work combines rigorous architectural planning, restraint with materials, and uncommon inventiveness with space and details. His latest completed project, Hat House (2022) in Sydney’s industrial inner-west, is unassuming yet complex. This deft revision of a semi-detached, single-storey dwelling demonstrates the easy elegance and spatial purity that have become a signature of Brad Swartz Architects. The project adds no more than 13 square metres to the existing footprint, but radically alters how it feels and functions. “We called it Hat House because the main architectural move is a roofline that extends up over the rear of the house like the peak of a cap. The rest was…