Matt Gibson Architecture + Design was tasked with upgrading the property in
the Australian city's Barrington heritage area, in order to create more
liveable spaces with a better connection to the large garden for a
family of five.
An earlier extension was removed to enable the alterations to the building, which did not seek to increase the overall
floor area but rather focused on reorganising the existing rooms to
generate an optimised, flexible layout.
The contemporary addition challenges the concept of building low quality, replica additions that
attach themselves to the heritage fabric and in effect compromise,
confuse and diminish the integrity of the original," the studio claimed.
"The intervention here is instead contemporary and interactive," they added,
"activating and opening up the compartmentalised interior to previously
under-utilised green space, and at the same time preserving and
augmenting the cultural significance of the original building."The need
to create a new sheltered outdoor space for year-round dining prompted
the project team, led by Japanese architect Erica Tsuda, to seek out a
solution that would limit glare resulting from the west-facing
orientation.
The architects chose to adapt a traditional Japanese concept known as "Hiro-En", where deep verandahs are added to rooms to
create a usable threshold between indoor and outdoor spaces.
Computer modelling of sunlight and shadow helped to establish how a similar
process, involving the accurate placement of canopies at different
heights, could shelter the living spaces from summer sun while admitting
it during winter.
