ameliarelocation of a house from sunbury to newbury
completed
tim and l as individuals, particularly tim, have a peccadillo for attempting to breath new life into objects discarded and oftentimes disregarded by others and hence our practice is known for including found objects within its work
so it comes as no surprise to us that by virtue of a simple decision to detour off the calder highway through sunbury [as you do] we discovered this house with a sign which effectively said “take me”
co-incidentally we’d had an image on the wall of our office that shows a home cut in half and unroofed as is the tradition of transported buildings
that image is called “mobile landscape” by black+hook upper pool design studio @ rmit university
and so we mobilised to try and save the sunbury building for our own use, to act so as it could be relocated on land we owned in newbury
furthermore, as the whole exercise of relocating a house relies heavily on road transport, road conditions and ultimately vic roads, it was decided our new residence should mark that process – in that it should clearly allude to it’s migration and establish a new dialogue with a very different landscape
the prominence of the freeway experience, with it’s enormous signs and repetitive symbols marks our journey to country projects and our own bush block
we’re attracted to the super-realism of jeffrey smart particularly works such as first study for the directors 1977 and had been introduced to richard tipping’s work by friend, concrete poet patrick jones whom himself had used street signage in humorous and confronting ways, while our continued collaborations with landscape artist mel ogden had introduced us to the particular qualities of retro-reflective material
sign language of “wrong way go back” has morphed into “wrong way keep going” a tongue in cheek wordplay to encourage those whom go a different path in a reasoned fashion, rather than conformity to a consumerist society as the right approach
tim o’sullivan architect
sioux clark interior designer
robin larsen [then] graduate architect
in conjunction with mel ogden
photographs
multiplicity