HOUSE House

Project Description

The flat Melbourne landscape has resulted in suburbs with low-density housing and large building plots. In contrast, HOUSE House is a vertical addition to two existing Victorian terraced houses. The new structure is built with a different orientation to the existing houses. Each level is unique in function and personality. The boundaries between the shared spaces and living spaces are blurred. The dining room, kitchen and back yard open onto one another. The fence along each house can slide away. There is a stairwell with a perforation between the existing and new structure, providing a transparency that articulates the separation between old and new. A material palette of contrasting steel and timber has been used throughout the project. Raw structural steel has been used in the space that is ‘cut out’ of the existing building and structure. HOUSE house reflects Melbourne’s tendency to tag buildings. Facing the street, the timber box is painted black. The black graphic is representative of the child-like image of a suburban home. Here we see the overlapping of two distinct approaches to the single-family house, with the stereotypical home overlaid by the import.