CHROFI has converted a nondescript 1980’s commercial building into a thriving mixed-use development comprised of five, three-bedroom, loft apartments sitting above ground floor commercial premises.
The existing building presented an overly wide street address that was incongruent with the scale of the rest of the street. The setback of the existing building from the road also created a poorly defined and out of scale pedestrian experience, preventing the building from meaningfully contributing to the life of the street and the nearby ‘five ways’ intersection.
At the summit of Bellevue Hill a centennial Peppertree rises over the skyline; two homes lie beneath its vast canopy. To one side of the fence, The Oculus House and to the other, Peppertree Villa, a skilfully designed late 1920s home.
One day the owners of the two homes met under this tree; they discussed botany and architecture. This was how Luigi Rosselli Architects came to be selected to respectfully revive and refresh this beautifully designed residence.
The clients approached us to design a new home in a heritage conservation area in Sydney’s East. The challenge then lay in concealing a large and contemporary two storey home behind part of a single storey federation frontage.
To respect the existing building we adopted a folded roof form derived from the angles of the existing slate roof. The abstract space created is reflected inside the house as a dramatic folded stair void connecting the two levels. The remainder of the house is contemporary, light filled in contrast to the original.
La Fleur exists as the result of a renovation and extension to an existing 1920’s Queenslander home in Auchenflower, Brisbane.
During the planning stage of La Fleur, three primary focal points were established to direct and drive the design and build of the house. This included future-proofing the house to allow for a multi-generational life span of the dwelling, maximising cross-ventilation throughout the internal spaces of the home, and a high energy efficiency rating. This enabled the delivery of an incredibly spacious, open-plan style home that accommodates the vibrant and modern Brisbane lifestyle.
This adaptive reuse of a former warehouse has maintained the exterior almost untouched, with only a few new windows inserted into existing openings. This soft touch has been extended to the interior, where original brick walls have been exposed and the large timber roof trusses highlighted as the starting point for the conversion to a family home.
The brief called for a 4 bedroom home, with self contained guest accommodation, a home office, to be used as an equine genetics laboratory and a large garage space to store a collection of classic sports cars. There was a strong emphasis on maintaining an industrial feel to the conversion and the owners asked that there be no timber, marble or black finishes used in the renovation.
In 1833 the town of Northam was gazetted; with the Ballardong Noongar people suffering intense and bloody repression until 1841 when relations became generally peaceful. In 1905 The Aborigines Act allowed the State to have complete control of ‘protection, control and segregation of Aboriginal people’ and in 1933 the whole Aboriginal population of the town was exiled to the Moore River Native Settlement- some 200 km away and in another “country”. The laws that enabled this were only repealed in 1954, and the Ballardong families returned to the town.
In 2016 the Shire Council obtained funding to create a new Cultural Centre that would promote and support the Ballardong Noongar people of the Avon Valley.
Our primary design response for this project was to first recalibrate the entire project site into a large and singular terrace; one grand outdoor theatre for living which peels upwards at each title boundary to form a lush garden backdrop that would appear at every viewpoint from the living areas of the home. Within this garden platform, the house is is defined by a pair of heavily textured concrete shrouds, each with its own proportion and personality, linked together by a walkway and courtyard garden. The arched concrete shrouds evolved as a method of structurally supporting the house with its own skin; designed to be understood as protective cloak rather than as signifiers of support. These shrouds provide the framework for how the spaces within the home relate to each other and to the external environment. From the first floor the context appears denied, however these more private bathing and sleeping spaces are pulled away from the ends of the solid skin which allows each elevated pavilion to look out through full height glazing onto their own private courtyards full of plants, sky and tree canopy. At ground floor within the living, cooking and dining spaces the concrete shells provide clear connectivity with the entire landscape and a sense of unexpected lightness, while carefully concealing the neighbouring context.
Article source: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), Architectus, and Dexus Property Group
On June 19th, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), Architectus, and Dexus Property Group, along with Australian civic and business leaders, marked the the completion and opening of 100 Mount Street, a 39-story glass-enclosed mixed-use tower in the heart of North Sydney’s Central Business District.
The design for 100 Mount was inspired by Sydney’s rich architectural landscape and shaped by SOM’s legacy of innovation in architecture and engineering worldwide. Evocative of SOM’s design for the John Hancock Center, 100 Mount is supported by an innovative cross-braced exoskeleton structure. Anchored by an offset core and clad in a soaring glass curtain wall, the tower offers panoramic views of Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Opera House, and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The tower’s interiors are designed to maximise daylight and open space, with 6-metre column-free zones to the north and south.
Tags: Australia, Sydney Comments Off on 100 Mount Street in Sydney, Australia by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), Architectus, and Dexus Property Group
The Cadogan Song School was commissioned to complete the composition of buildings within the historical Treasury/ Cathedral precinct, and provide facilities for the St.George’s Cathedral choir. Located between St. George’s Cathedral, Burt Memorial Hall, Church House and the Deanery, the 200sqm Song School was designed to not only visually balance the composition of unique existing buildings, but allow full access throughout the site.
Consisting of a series of sculptural vaulted arches and a ‘tuning fork’ spire – a contemporary reference to the religious architectural language and defining lancet windows of the Cathedral – the scale and form of the vaults allows the eye to transition and understand the dialogue between old and new.
The conceptual approach was to create houses that sit comfortably within the established urban streetscape, provide elements of drama and discovery, and engage with the iconic harbour bridge and opera house views to the front and intimate landscaped gardens to the rear. The sites are small (255sqm and 336sqm), steep and irregular.
Responding to the irregular site boundary and contextual differences, the two houses take on different yet complementary forms, differentiated by mass and material.
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