dunn n’ dusted
renovation for chris&penny
completed 2013

we have a friend
we are thinking of getting more but baby steps… little footsteps
stephen crafti is that friend
he is an architectural and design writer
he also conducts the wonderful archi tours
for a small contribution to the upkeep of the crafti cat ‘harvey’ you get a bus tour of residential architecture [predominantly in melbournes suburbs but we have been down the coast a few times to visit beachhouses as well as a trip to sydney and to helsinki to see the works of alvo alto] getting to tour through 4 to 5 residences with lunch thrown in

a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon with 50 odd fellow architectural enthusiasts
over the years we have had probably 8 projects open as part of these tours and we are regulars on the tours themselves
it has always surprised me that so few architects from the melbourne scene ever seem interested in looking at the work of their fellow practioners as there have only been a handful of other architects on the tour over the years
from my perspective the best way to keep learning and understanding design and detailing is to see it in the flesh

if you want to know how a designer has precariously cantilevered that kitchen bench….you gotta crawl under it and have a look

going through a project of ours… tom and tina’s… one woman was particularly taken with the laundry chute we had gone to great pains to incorporate within such a slim house
and so you just never can guage what it is that attracts a client to your work




that woman was penny

her project also shall have a laundry chute
penny’s partner chris really doesn’t care about the laundry chute nor to much about designer things but he does care about what penny wants and so penny gets the laundry chute amongst other things

chris and penny purchased a rather dour two storey art deco building that had an interesting external concrete stairwell that accessed the first floor apartment
they also negotiated to purchase a tract of land to the rear of the property so the block became a very long skinny site with a doglegged section to the rear that connected to a bluestone laneway
chris and penny were interested in a contemporary home but layering it within the fabric of the existing structure
well really penny was more interested in this approach but chris to his credit went along with it




the end design approach navigates around two main criteria
firstly to maintain and incorporate into the interior the existing curved concrete stairwell
secondly to deal with the length of the block… which we chose to tackle by creating an internal courtyard separating the main bedroom from the house proper

maintaining the existing building shell has been a very interesting dilemma and the resulting engineering approach has meant a lot of liasing between us as the designers and the engineer
engineers love big fat heavy steel portals filling up their lives and the projects they are involved with
convincing them that they are oversizing their structures is for my part still a work in progress


[ some newspaper clippings]





project design team
tim o’sullivan architect
sioux clark interior designer
sarah magennis then architectural graduate
cassie southon then architectural graduate
steve kelly draftsperson

photographs
multiplicity

publication images
sunday life magazine