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Architects: Nic Brunsdon
- Area: 230 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Dion Robeson
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Lead Architect: Nic Brunsdon
Text description provided by the architects. The East Fremantle House is a contextually responsive addition to a heritagecottage in suburban Perth. The most important part of this house is the space that is not built - speci{cally, alarge northern void - a space for sun, light, sky, sound, and breeze to inhabit. Thehouse then traces this edge, creating rooms with immediate connection to theseelemental conditions.
On the northern face of the addition, the form is simple and linear, allowing thesouthern mass of the building to be an eycient living space conceptualised as onelong ‘garden room’. The northern face of these spaces is lined with sliding doors,allowing the whole space to open up and allow the life of the house to spill out andoccupy the full width of the site.
On the southern face, the ancillary program elements are expressed as ‘lumps’; atall triangular chimney for the {replace, a curved north facing shell for an art wall, alow top-lit box for the kitchen, and a high round cylinder for a powder room.
Formally, the house is expressed in four parts; the existing brick cottage, an entrylink, the ground |oor addition, and the {rst |oor addition. The entry link acts as amediating point, the connective tissue between the elements. Dark, hard andsolemn. To the left upon entry is the existing cottage, restored and lightly amended.To the right, the garden room and living spaces which are, light, bright, and open,experientially a direct counter to the experience of the house upon entry. Abovethese sits the articulated eaves and master suite, a wooden box perched lightly.
The ground |oor addition is masonry construction, either painted or bagged brick,or rough thrown concrete, all painted white. This |oor then hits a very deliberateand expressed datum line above which the project becomes light framed natural timbers. There are two points where this hard datum threshold is broken; once onthe southern elevation where the counter ‘lumps’ break through to varying heights,and again in the sunken lounge room where the {rst-|oor stair |icks a timber hatchdown to welcome and gently touch the heavy base of the ground |oor program.
This practice’s view of sustainability is that it is best done as a {rst principles thingand not an applied technology. Getting the massing, orientation and subsequentprogram planning right is the most important thing we can do as designers of lived-in environments. More so than ever in our current context of shifting work patternstowards the home.
This project demonstrates that by placing the northern garden as the {rst designmove on site. The building then becomes secondary and deferential to this. Thegarden, this void of space, gives measurable and appreciable amenity to the projectand shows that an understanding of and connection to our celestial sphere canshape the rhythms, patterns, and quality of daily family life.
