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Architects: Breathe Architecture
- Area: 307 m²
- Year: 2013
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Photographs:Andrew Wuttke
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Manufacturers: GRAPHISOFT, Academy Tiles, Adobe, Ambiance Lumiere, Eco Timber, Lockwood, Urban Salvage
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Lead Architect: Jeremy McLeod
Text description provided by the architects. Stonewood is efficient: its elegant plan offers flexibility for a humble family. It's operable screens transform connecting spaces, sectioning large areas into intimate nooks, directing views, and channelling breezes. Folding and unfolding according to use, Stonewood reveals a different story in each configuration, appearing effortlessly spacious within a modest footprint. Stonewood presents an aspirational solution to a designing on a modest bu dget. The 8.5 star rated home utilizes elegant planning, and passive methods of thermal comfort to tackle a site presenting a series of dichotomous interests. With a street address and sun to the north, privacy to the south, and heritage context to the west; Stonewood’s operable façade serves to resolve each of these needs.
Sitting compact and forward on the site, Stonewood easily transitions into a pubic, social platform. The hinged ground floor façade opens, welcoming in light while drawing the interior into the garden or further into the community domain. Taking the form of a simple two-storey dwelling, Stonewood borrows scale and proportion from a neighbouring 1850’s bluestone cottage, while it’s symmetrical door and window openings recall the familiar Georgian expression of ‘home’.
Stonewood is efficient: its elegant plan offers flexibility for a humble family. Side-shifting recycled Tasmanian oak panels act as devices to transform as desire or weather dictates; directing views, channelling breezes and transitioning interconnected living spaces into cosy zones for isolated use. Folding/ unfolding according to use, Stonewood reveals a different story in each configuration, appearing effortlessly spacious within a modest footprint.
Sustainability Statement. Stonewood is small, efficient, dynamic and adaptable. A home with rooms with multiple functions able to adapt to differing conditions over time. A home with an efficient plan, a modest footprint and a modest budget. A home that brings architectural delight to it’s occupants and the community with little embodied energy, and that would continue to operate with a greatly reduced energy profile.