Client: Axis Capital
Scale: 800sqm
Completion: July 2018
Description:
A redevelopment of a Brisbane CBD office tower including a thoroughly redesigned ground level lobby and cafe, end-of-trip facility and lift interior upgrades.
The new lobby transforms what was formerly an austere and empty space into a lush, densely detailed environment full of intimate settings for gathering together or enjoying some quiet solitude in a semi-public space that is neither the office or the street.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: ISPT
Scale: 22,000sqm
Completion: November 2018
Description:
This reworking of a particularly raw but refined 1970's CBD office tower pares back layers of recent refurbishments to leave the beautiful bone structure of tapered concrete columns and uninterrupted facade glazing to do the talking.
Overlaid onto this is the bare minimum of embellishment, intended to bring a sense of tactile deliciousness to surfaces that the hand can touch and the eye can wander over.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Aria Property Group
Scale: 700sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
Transformative upgrades to an existing inner-city Brisbane property will see a new precinct emerge. The refurbishment of a service laneway, carpark warehouse and an existing prominent building create a series of spaces that celebrate stripped-back original conditions, while introducing refined complimentary detailing.
Seen from the street, a new café tenancy projects into the laneway, while a bar and dining venue is housed in the former carpark to offer visitors an unpretentious experience that revels in the idiosyncratic nature of urban laneways and retrofitted spaces.
A new sculptural staircase, fabricated from mild steel, cantilevers into the laneway to lure visitors’ gaze to the upper level tenancies and encourage movement down Ulster Lane. Lush planting is integrated into forms to create an environment characterised by growth, in sync with the rhythm of the bustling city.
Client: Private
Scale: 175sqm
Completion: June 2017
Builder: Xenia Constructions
Awards:
2018 AIA Queensland Architecture Awards - Brisbane Regional Commendation for Interior Architecture
Publications:
Artichoke magazine - Issue 62
Description:
This new day spa occupies a space fronting St Paul's Terrace on the ground level of Lend Lease's new "Kingsgate" office tower at the RNA showgrounds precinct.
With the treatment spaces tucked away behind a gentle layer of privacy, the primary space that opens onto the street makes the most of the available ceiling height with a generous vaulting ceiling which runs the full length of the space.
A lush green tiled floor builds up into a high skirting, and a band of natural spotted gum timber lining and dowel screens completes the tripartite sectional arrangement.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Axis Capital
Scale: 700sqm
Completion: July 2018
Description:
Continuing the design themes and materiality from the foyer redevelopment above, this new End-Of-Trip considers in great detail the experience of building users as they arrive from their morning commute or step out for a midday gym session.
Being an entirely subterranean space, the EOT is crafted as a completely introspective environment, offering visual and tactile delight in a highly crafted series of discreet rooms.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Private
Scale: 26sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
The fitout of a deluxe chocolate retailer is perfectly matched to the design philosophies underpinning our base building redevelopment of Central Plaza Annex situated in Brisbane’s CBD.
The store is anchored by a central copper-clad counter to entice passersby. The counter mimics a “jewellery box” to encourage the careful perusal of the assortment of chocolate. A sheet of copper frames the rear wall of the tenancy to create a luminous and expansive space to compliment the richness of the chocolate itself.
The open plan layout features dark stone and raw industrial surfaces to provide a rich and subdued space to showcase the indulgent edible delights.
Client: ISPT
Scale: N/A
Completed: March 2018
Description:
Bespoke lobby furniture made in collaboration with Schiavello for Central Plaza Brisbane, originally designed in the 1980's by Japanese architect Kisho Kurakawa. The polished stone floors were intended to represent the Japanese game of "Go", and this furniture creates new pieces for the board.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Australian Government - Department of Industry. Innovation & Science
Scale: 827sqm
Completion: July 2018
Description:
This new office fit out for a federal government agency occupies a mid rise level of the existing office tower at 100 Creek Street in the Brisbane Central Business district.
Constructed in 1974, the original tower offers ‘good bones’ for a modern office fit out.
The public arrival and communal spaces are celebrated with a delicate wrapping of blonde timbers and light stone as a skin that threads itself through key collective spaces in the office.
Internal timber fins frame views, culminate vistas and filter natural light through the plan. Detailed joinery elements enrich everyday moments that form the routine of daily office life, such as welcoming visitors and addressing staff meetings, down to one-on-one meetings of special importance through an offering of warm timber touch points.
In contrast, office spaces are afforded a level of spartan simplicity to compliment the richness of the arrival and communal areas, allowing the beautiful bones of the tower a place in the conversation.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: ISPT
Scale: 6,000sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
Opening up a brand new pedestrian connection between Queen Street and Eagle Lane via a dining arcade, this redevelopment of an existing 7-storey office "mini-tower" annex to the much larger, 40-storey conjoined "Central Plaza", strips away all traces of 1980's polish (leaving the adjoining tower thoroughly intact) and leaves a raw but refined arcade dining environment that announces its presence at street and laneway frontages via large insitu concrete portals.
Client: ARIA Property Group
Scale: 1,000 sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
An adaptive re-use redevelopment of a historic Art Deco apartment building on a very busy South Brisbane corner into a new bar/dining establishment. A new Corbusian slabs-and-pilotis construction is proposed as the site's new primary entry point fronting Fish Lane, Brisbane's most active and diverse dining laneway. A gold mosaic tile-clad vault caps the structure, with diminishing voids cut through the levels below to allow the golden shimmer to be visible from the moment visitors arrive at the laneway entry.
Client: Private
Scale: 50sqm
Completion: March 2019
Description:
The design of La Macelleria Gelateria’s fourth establishment in Brisbane’s growing RNA precinct is a lovingly detailed store that draws people in.
The shopfront consists of slender black framing and clear glazing to showcase the interior and dissolve the boundary from outside to inside.
Simple white tiles are accented by the rich red-painted exposed soffit and services. Linear track lighting further accentuates this powerful overhead expression.
Client: Axis Capital
Scale: 25,000sqm
Completion: Ongoing
Description:
The design of a new office tower on Coronation Drive in Brisbane combines striking forms and materials to produce an outcome that is powerfully distinctive.
The hero, a ribbed glazed prism showcases a tapered void set into its profile and a cantilevering floor plate above. Each floor has uncompromising views of the river, and to the city and South Brisbane precinct.
A contrasting volume, wrapped in a terracotta screen, is positioned at the rear site to house many functional elements. The ground plane assumes a village-like presence, with a terracotta clad colonnade prompting movement into and around retail spaces.
Client: ISPT
Scale: 550sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
The first Brisbane example of ISPT's "Dialogue" concept, this full floor fitout of the Central Plaza Annex converts a conventional office floor into a flexible meetings & gathering space for Central Plaza tenant organisations. Accessible via the sensuous copper stair (or lifts) from our laneway retail development at ground level of the same building, this new space is designed to create spaces scaled to feel perfect for gatherings ranging from a casual one-on-one chat to a 200-person function.
Client: Lendlease
Scale: 1,200sqm
Completion: August 2015
Builder: Lendlease
Description:
Transforming the traditional relationship between office tower and street, this design for the ground level public spaces and retail areas blurs the boundary between inside and outside, public and private. A largely outdoor “foyer” space and deeply shaded outdoor dining areas are key features of this highly permeable ground plane.
These spaces provide outdoor dining, informal meeting and incidental interaction opportunities, with the objective of establishing a new precedent for subtropical commercial office development through the creation of memorable, enjoyable outdoor spaces that directly connect the building to its historic public context.
Client: ISPT
Scale: 1,200sqm
Completion: Feb 2017
Builder: Xenia Constructions
Description:
Reclaiming under-utilised basement floor area as new shower & change facilities for building users in Central Plaza, Brisbane, this end-of-trip facility pares back the existing remnant spaces to their raw, concrete-encased form and adds in only the bare minimum of new elements to create a atmosphere of austere but sensual luxury.
Human interaction with every item is considered in detail, with careful attention paid to every touch point and the daily process of cleansing the body and preparing for work or exercise.
Technological items such as in-locker phone charging, wi-fi and building information integration are all available but their presence is embedded within tactile, natural surfaces that are a delight to touch and effortless to use.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Axis Capital
Scale: 25,000sqm
Completion: Ongoing
Description:
The overall form of this multi-residential apartment tower is punctuated with voids that run the full height of the building, capped with arched apertures. The varied use of scale in this proposal animates the building’s composition amid the surrounding streetscape and carves out views to enable residents to appreciate the adjacent river.
A large arched aperture is also featured on the ground plane to mark the entry into the building.
Retail tenancies are tucked into the strong base of the building where their presence is clearly identified. Immense planting cascades down the façade of the building making this proposal a welcomed addition to Brisbane’s Coronation Drive.
Client: Wil Valor Bespoke
Scale: 64sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
Located in Brisbane Quarter’s new W Hotel, a bespoke tailoring store resides on the podium level. The intent of the fitout design and the tailor’s product mirror each other — carefully detailed forms that speak volumes to both quality and individuality.
The fitout exploits the narrow floor plate and the full-height glazed frontage by positioning a series of crisp, white, well-proportioned arched display frames that showcase custom-designed suites worn by mannequins.
This seductive and powerful display is balanced by the restrained design that occurs beyond. While it is possible to glimpse a private fitting session and the range of the high-end product within the store, walls and joinery are dark in tone and are accented by luxurious curtains, parquetry flooring and a bespoke brass serving counter.
Photography: Cameron Murchison
Client: Private
Scale: 5sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
The humble five square metre footprint of the ‘Beach Box’, located on the Mornington Peninsula, is an unimposing addition to the captivating landscape.
The box, clad in reclaimed timber, unfolds in sections to maximise the use of internal space and reveal the contrasting blackbutt timber interior lining.
Client: Robina Group
Scale: 6,350sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
The proposal for a federal government office building provides a robust planning approach that caters to the diverse needs of people working in and visiting the building. The site is strategically located with ease of access to transport and a major town centre.
Projecting towards the street, an aperture spans from the ground plane and extends past the roofline, clearly identifying the building’s entry. The ground plane opens into a generous double height volume that exudes a sense of welcoming as people enter.
The clean lines of the expressed concrete slabs delineate the floor levels. Floor-to-floor glazing is situated on the north and south facades, while angled fins on the west and east facades protect the building’s inhabitants from harsh sunlight.
Client: Private
Scale: 85sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
This contemporary house boat re-imagines how to recreate on the water. The design of the 85 square metre floating structure is detailed with high quality finishes.
A blackbutt timber screen located on the perimeter of the boat provides privacy to selected interior spaces. Blackbutt timber is further used to clad internal walls enriching each space significantly. Structural elements are slender and powdercoated black to produce a sophisticated statement.
The prototype features a central opening that functions as an intimate swimming area, whereas the roof deck is ideal for socialising and taking in the surroundings.
Client: Private
Scale: 67sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
A quaint building neighbouring St Patrick’s Church in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley serves as a private function venue for weddings typically. An upgrade of the building’s entry sequence to provide more equitable access, along with the addition of a verandah space to the building’s eastern facade will offer the best possible experience for guests.
The new entry introduces hard and soft landscaping that aims to harmonise the ascent from street level through gently inclined walkways and additional planting. The hard landscaping features a selection of porphyry stones to reference the materiality of the church in eye sight.
The new verandah provides guests with an additional area that features large spotted gum timber retractable windows and a glazed roof to take full advantage of the view to the adjacent fig tree and church.
Client: QIC
Scale: 1,200sqm
Completion: Ongoing
Builder: TBC
Description:
A redevelopment of an existing suburban shopping centre, this scheme transforms an erratic array of angular exposed steelwork and a chaotic cascade of jutting awnings into a smooth, voluminous and cohesive whole.
Working around the existing retail tenancies, the public spaces are given a completely new personality and presence through a language of white-tiled massing that envelops the existing steel structure and opens itself to the sky with asymmetrical apertures.
An elevated, planter-topped colonnade buffers the walkways and dining spaces from the carparking with spilling plants that create an experience of cool, shady lushness in Brisbane’s hot, humid subtropical climate.
Client: Private
Scale: 250sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
Importing the ideas behind Torre Guinigi from Lucca in Tuscany to Wilston in Brisbane, this house starts with an entry tower topped by a lookout with views of the city from under the shade of a tree's canopy.
The house then unfolds in stepped terraces down the north-facing hillside site, with a central courtyard between the double-height living spaces and the sleeping & bathing spaces in the rear portion of the house.
Cladding is lightweight, as dictated by town planning regulations, and is anchored off chimney-like heavy brick stacks.
Client: Private
Scale: 600sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
Located 250 kilometres north of Brisbane, a private client’s vacant site on Fraser Island offers an idyllic destination to relax and spend time with friends and family.
The form of the home nestles into the natural gradient of the landscape and is organised around the preservation of an existing Banksia tree.
A pool accompanies the existing tree in a central courtyard space that draws attention inwards, creating an intimate and private home that at the same time is spacious and able to accommodate several guests at any one time.
Externally the house is clad in white fibre cement panels and features green stained timber in communal outdoor dining spaces to complement the native surroundings. Double height volumes characterise many of the home’s public spaces and frame views of the island and the nearby water.
Client: ISPT
Scale: 900sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
In an era where a basement "end of trip facility" is a fundamental requirement for any CBD office tower, this proposal takes over an entire above-ground office level and converts it into a wellness centre for use by building users and the general public alike.
A new stair links the upper level space to a busy street-level laneway, leading to a juice bar reception which opens onto a boxing gym and yoga studio.
Around the tower's core, shower, change and locker facilities are grouped so that they can be used by cycle commuters, evening joggers and gym users alike.
The design of the entire space emphasizes the raw concrete structure of the buildling, paring back finishes & embellishments in the same way that working out takes us back to our raw physical selves.
Client: Private
Scale: 60sqm
Completion: Feb 2014
Builder: Formula Interiors
Awards:
2018 AIA Queensland Architecture Awards - State Award for Interior Architecture
Publications:
Artichoke magazine - Issue 50
Description:
A new store for designer optometry brand OPTIKO, this fitout in the historic Tattersall's Arcade in the Brisbane CBD looks to settle effortlessly into its old-world gentlemen's club location, as if it's always been there.
Referencing Sir John Soane's 1812 House Museum in London and Carlo Scarpa's 1958 Olivetti Showroom in Venice, the fitout mixes theatricality with familiarity, brought together with fetishistic detailing.
Photography: David Hanson & Chris Proud
Client: QIC
Scale: 1,200 sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
Acting as catalyst to the larger centre, one wing and its forecourt look to return a vibrancy and bring much needed shape to a neglected dining and fresh produce precinct of the Forest Lake Shopping Centre.
A richly fluctuating landscape offers an array of courts, shady groves, stairs, seating pockets and platforms, all coupled with gardens for joy and lawns for play.
The sight and sound of ponds, channels and cascades threads the plaza together on axis with the existing fig tree and clocktower. Working together with a new planted colonnade a its perimeter, a civic sense is brought to the square and dignifies it as a destination in itself.
Taking cues from the grand axial atrium of the centre, a concertina ceiling suspends a steel frame of signage, lighting and greenery to order and demarcate the spaces below.
Client: Mantle Group
Scale: 1,000sqm
Completion: Mar 2016
Description:
The latest Pig'N'Whistle venue and the first on the Southside, this very sophisticated pub opens directly out onto a very busy corner with outdoor seating and lush landscaping right up to the footpath edge.
Inside, the vaulted ceilings simultaneously tie the whole interior space together whilst also having the effect of breaking up the large internal volumes into more intimate, human-scaled spaces that lend an aura of specialness to the space around each table.
The ceilings create a regular rhythm in the interior spaces that are very irregularly-shaped in plan, bringing order and a sense of familiar history that is carried in the vault forms. The spaces thus created are visually arresting but also easily approachable and instantly comfortable.
The bar itself is the centrepiece of the venue, crafted from brass and Pilbara marble in an intricate composition on a very large scale.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Private
Scale: 25sqm
Completion: May 2014
Builder: Formula Interiors
Awards:
2018 AIA Queensland Architecture Awards - State Award for Interior Architecture
2014 Best Cafe Design Shortlist, Australian Eat Drink Design Awards
Description:
Directly opposite our OPTIKO fitout, this new cafe/bar for the same client continues the same contextually-responsive design themes and seeks to establish itself as something of a rarity in the Brisbane cafe scene - a quietly elegant off-the-street destination with a classically continental approach.
Brass, marble, dark timber and studded leather finishes combine with handmade tiles, chamfered mirrors and low lighting to create a space that is designed for settling into by day and night.
The signage and graphics are an integral part of the fitout, and are the result of a close collaboration with graphic designers The Letter D.
Photography: David Hanson & Chris Proud
Client: Arete
Scale: 1,292sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description
A design proposal for the new Uber "Green Light Hub" in West End, Brisbane, utilising an extremely limited budget to maximum effect by concentrating the design effort around the public entry point, while the remainder of the spaces were to be ultra-basic, stripped back and raw.
The new reception point occupied an existing double-height space at the front centre of the building footprint and was treated as a single timber mass form where the arrival counter was integrated into the stair access to the upper staff level, and an accessible staff lift was edged with a lush planted timber screen. All other finishes were to be simple raw concrete with basic painted walls and economical loose furniture.
Client: Private
Scale: 88sqm
Completion: June 2017
Description:
This raw and simple design for La Macelleria Gelateria’s West End store emphasise the diverse selection of exquisite gelato and sorbet on offer. The fresh concrete floor is paired with deep tones that envelop the service counter, ceiling and services.
Walls feature clean white tiling, with touches of brass and timber detailing adding warmth.
Client: LaSalle Investment Management
Scale: 2,000sqm
Completion: In progress
Description
Client: Private
Scale: 400sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
To be constructed using a prefabricated timber shed-frame system, this house for a large family on a magnificent semi-rural site is envisaged as a small village with a central courtyard and a series of distinctly different outdoor spaces on the outer periphery.
With a primary structure including all the main living spaces, the other structures that make up the village include a parents' suite, a pair of double children's rooms, a garage and a utility shed.
The "circled wagons" arrangement of the individual buildings creates a completely private yet completely open central space which forms the true living heart of an outdoor-oriented household.
Client: Private
Scale: 400sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
Situated on an expansive site of open eucalyptus forest between Brisbane and Ipswich, this house is designed to have a very direct relationship with the intensely-present elements whilst making its presence felt within an environment that could easily overwhelm a meeker intervention.
The house presents itself with a variety of personas as it is approached along the existing winding dirt track. As first glimpsed, the leaping roofline dominates under the vast sky and tree canopies. Circling around on the track behind the house, it protects itself from the intense southwestern heat with solid masonry walls, punctuated only by the single break of the front door and capped with the angluar cantilevering roof. Continuing around the northern, open forested side, the house opens itself out to the landscape, stepping gently down from an only slightly raised verandah to an outdoor hearth and a grove of native grass trees.
Client: Private
Scale: 275sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
A new 5-bedroom house for a lush suburban Brisbane site, this house adapts itself around an existing carport and complex crossfalls to create a carefully arranged cluster of familyoriented spaces that relate intimately to their private landscape setting.
A heavy brick base anchors the house to the site and creates a variety of subtle edge conditions that each facilitate a different mode of engagement with the landscape.
Above the brick base, simple white weatherboard-clad volumes sit amongst the tree canopies, offering views and privacy.
Client: Pragmatic Traning
Scale: 3425 sqm
Completion: April 2016
Builder: Amicus Interiors
Description:
A very low-cost fitout for a beauty, health, design and IT vocational training company across two full levels of the brand new Kingsgate office tower in Bowen Hills constructed by Lend Lease. More details of our design for the ground level retail & public spaces environment on the project page.
Expansive open spaces are an essential component of the brief, allowing for classroom & studio training as well as common area gathering and recreation for large numbers of students.
The material & finishes palette is very simple & restrained, creating a simple but memorable backdrop for the busy activity of daily learning & socialising activities.
Photography: Toby Scott
Client: Private
Scale: 7,500sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
This small apartment tower, to be located in one of Brisbane's most underdeveloped inner-city pockets, takes its design cues from its context of historic warehouse-industrial structures mixed with more recent, taller buildings.
The podium design borrows heavily from nearby facades, with classic red brick and exposed concrete banding interspersed with occasional arched window heads and parapet details. An open brick screen conceals and ventilates the podium carparking located above a ground level which includes reception, cafe and bar/restaurant space as well as back-of-house functions.
The tower itself has an extremely simple language with regular steel mullions running full height to meet the sawtooth roof that shelters a roof bar overlooking the city, as well as service plantrooms to the rear. The sawtooth roof and raw tower expression both reference local steel warehouse typologies.
The tower accommodates 45 apartments and is 13 storeys high above street level, with 2 additional basement levels below.
Client: Brookfield Multiplex
Scale: 27,000sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
This 25-storey, 264-apartment tower on a prominent Brisbane inner-city corner site takes context as cue for its overall form and detail expression.
The tower is designed to be fully public at ground and mezzanine levels, constructed in rough brick to reflect the gritty & historic nature of the surrounding built form. Situated on a prime corner in a major entertainment precinct, it is permeable to the street for its entire frontage, offering opportunities for people-watching via lounge-able edges.
The tower form is a simple glazed functionalist extrusion, capped by a simple metal roof form that borrows from nearby light industrial warehouses.
Client: Queensland Ultimate Disc Association
Scale: 1,500sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
A concept for Australia's first permanent Ultimate Disc facility, this robustly elegant structure is intended to become the Brisbane home of the rapidly-growing sport of Ultimate Disc.
It is designed as a community facility, and as such takes economy and flexibility as its starting points. Oriented north/south, it has two distinctly different faces - one screened off from the western sun with a deep colonnade, and the other opening out to the playing fields with grandstand seating.
The expandable modular structure comprises 3 primary materials - raw concrete superstructure, white powdercoated steel elevated structure, and raw coreten steel infill walls & screens.
Client: Private
Scale: 450sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
This new house for a builder and his family on a gently sloping, eucalypt-wooded 5 acre site is designed as an extension of the landscape as well as an elevated platform from which its verdant, semi-rural setting can be observed and enjoyed.
The house is grounded into the site with a heavy brickwork base that makes its presence felt as it turns toward the sky as a chimney. The elevated portions of the house are anchored around this chimney, with a simple trussed roof covering over the entire open "C" planform in a single sweep.
Rather than being an object in the landscape, the house is imagined as a more habitable extension of the landscape itself, always directing itself outward for a man and a family that love to spend as much time as possible outdoors.
Client: Private
Scale: 50sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
A very small extension to an existing family house in one of Brisbane's more established northwestern suburbs, this project adds a third companion structure to the modest single-level house and detached garage that currently occupy the site.
The new two-storey addition completes a three-part composition of mini-buildings gathered around a north-facing courtyard, leaving room for the courtyard to spill over into the informal, rambling gardens that border the site on all sides.
While the new spaces include only a lounge room, bedroom and ensuite, with a dining room occupying what was formerly a deck, the end result is a transformed living environment that is felt throughout the whole house.
Client: ARIA Property Group
Scale: 30sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
A simple glass display case placed in a garden in front of an existing office building in South Brisbane.
A reflective polished stainless steel roof with fine perimeter columns addresses the street and provides shelter, while the glass box within breaks away from the street alignment to settle into its garden setting and respond to its micro-context of adjoining window openings and solid walls.
Absolute transparency is the primary concern, with the entire interior easily visible from the street. The physical entry point is defined by a single arch, also of polished stainless, completely unembellished and stripped back to its pure abstracted essence as signifier of an opening.
Client: Private
Scale: 450sqm
Completion: In progress
Description:
A very low-cost conversion of two 1970's brick-fronted warehouses sharing a single site in Fortitude Valley, this project rehabilitates the site and the existing buildings for human habitation through lush planting and simple design interventions.
The two warehouse buildings, one roughly twice the size of the other, are separated by a service laneway which is re-imagined as a productive garden and entry way to the small warehouse, reconfigured as a family home.
The large warehouse is adapted into a flexible office, events or showroom space, allowing living and work to occur side-by-side with a blurred but still clearly legible delineation.
Client: Open Competition
Scale: 5,000sqm
Completion: NIL
Description:
According to the late Ngunnawal Elder Don Bell, the true meaning of the word "Canberra" is "woman's breasts", referring to the twin mountains of Mt Ainslie and Black Mountain that define the plain in which Canberra was created. Despite this, Canberra is defined around just one primary axis established between Mt Ainslie and Parliament House.
This proposal seeks to re-establish a polyvalent relationship with the ancient Canberran genius loci by forming itself around the intersection of the two major axial lines to Mt Ainslie and Black Mountain, and then adding to this the third and fourth axial determinants of Red Hill and the sky, or Cosmos.
Australia is an ambitious, outward-looking island nation, and this proposal reflects our grounded, “down to earth” persona combined with global outlook in its siting and physical expression. The site itself is the landing point for a soaring structure that leaps out over Lake Burley Griffin and addresses the City of Canberra with a confident, welcoming disposition.
The siting of The Lodge allows the majority of the site to be preserved as landscape setting for perambulation and rehabilitation. The site divides into two equal sized settings on either side of the ridge. To the west, gathered around a private cove, is the “cultivated” landscape, whilst to the east is the protected “indigenous” landscape.
The great copper roof is the defining element of the architecture, as it is of our mineral-rich continent. The roof takes on the familiar gabled profile of historic local structures, including the original worker cottages at Westlake and the Yarralumla Brickworks. This roof form speaks immediately of “home”, but its scale and articulation give the building a sense of purpose and identity befitting its role as The Lodge.
At the primary entry, the great roof cantilever reaches out to a skyward mast from which the Australian flag is flown. The roof is truncated perpendicular to the axis linking the Lodge and Parliament House flagpoles.
Internally, the ground level is given over to public spaces, with the ballroom and dining room occupying the primary eastern and western wings over the Lake. The upper level features the PM's residence and office in separate wings. A great central atrium connects both levels with the sky and is envisaged as a “house museum”, displaying Prime Ministerial art and artifacts from Federation to present day.
Client: Private
Completion: Mar 2010
Scale: 1,100sqm
Builder: Kym Lynch
Awards:
2011 AIA National Awards - Brisbane Regional Commendation - Commercial Architecture
2011 AIA National Awards - Queensland State Award - Commercial Architecture
2011 IDEA Awards - Finalist, Commercial Interiors
Publications:
Artichoke Vol 32
AIA "Inspire 2010"
Description:
An existing warehouse abutting the main northern rail line in Fortitude Valley is re-purposed as a collection of flexible event spaces downstairs and shared creative studio tenancies upstairs. The primary task was to create a memorable identity and atmosphere for the building and its interior spaces whilst leaving things open-ended enough to allow for any sort of event or end use without significant modification or restraint upon theming.
Particular attention has been paid to giving the building a “blank canvas” exterior, communicating its intended persona, whilst ensuring the internal spaces have “strong bones” with scope for endless change accommodated within volumes that retain their integrity and spatial quality even when empty.
hotography: Scott Burrows
Client: Private
Scale: 150sqm
Completion: Unbuilt
Description:
The ceiling is the only interior surface in any building that remains largely uncovered by furnishings and decorations. Flat ceilings give nothing for the imagination to become attached to, for the reclined eye to investigate and traverse - the inverted landscape of daydreams.
A refurbishment of an apartment in a 1980's cream brick tower, this scheme is defined by the extruded triple-vault ceiling form that is adapted at an exact 1:1 scale from the entry arches of the building at street level.
The triple-vault form is modified further in plan, overcoming the typical "space sandwich" of the apartment volume by creating a unique spatial environment in each room. The vault form re-appears in every room in a different guise - as a portal, an ornament or the upper limit of a loosely defined sub-space.
The intent is to create an enjoyable and physically tangible sense of spatial variety, as well as an intriguingly-detailed ceiling over which the eye may wander at leisure. The result is a collection of rooms that each carry their own sense of atmosphere and intimacy, tied together into a recognisable whole by the simple but surprisingly varied triple-vault device.
Client: Private
Completion: Mar 2006
Scale: 150sqm
Description:
A small renovation project on an existing 1930's house and gallery in Canberra, the scheme removes a bathroom, toilet and laundry which previously occupied the northeastern corner of the house and replaces them with new indoor and outdoor living spaces whilst adding no extra floor area. The primary organising and spatial device is a utility spine accessible from both sides which buffers the public living areas from the private sleeping areas.
Photography: Alex Chomicz
