Harry House
By Archier
The Harry House is a family home that proves that efficiency can be generous and joyful.
The clients, a family of five, wanted to extend their weatherboard home in Coburg. They didn’t want to just add extra space for the sake of it, they were inspired by a period of living in Japan, so spatial efficiency was a focus. We took time to understand how they currently lived as a family, with three young boys, while also considering their future, to ensure that the house will support their needs as they changed with time.
After a thorough analysis of the site, we proposed a discrete two-storey addition to preserve space in the backyard for the garden. Clad in charred timber, the compact addition is hidden behind the original house, creating a home that is spatially efficient while providing everything the family needs: a highly functional ‘services core’; three bedrooms for the boys; a practical and social kitchen-dining space; a calm and light-filled living area; and a master bedroom in the upper level, nestled in the canopy of two large fig trees.
The kitchen-dining area is the centre of the family home, so it made sense to group the most functional areas around this heart: adjoining the kitchen, a butlers’ pantry, a laundry and a main bathroom form a services core – easily accessible from the boys’ bedrooms – creating a focused space for feeding, bathing and cleaning.
In the kitchen, one simple design move made all the difference: we stepped the floor level down reducing the visual impact of the island bench in the dining space. This allowed for a greater sense of social connection between zones, with even the youngest child having the ability to peer over the bench to see what’s going on.
The living area is relatively modest when compared to the size of the other shared spaces, so floor to ceiling windows bring natural light into the room, to create a sense of space and wellbeing. This is balanced by the timber ceiling, which makes the area feel cosseted and protected.
A pair of double-height voids create connection between the floors, ensuring that the upper floor with the master bedroom remains the parents’ sanctuary, while not being completely removed from the lower family space. We suspended netting hammocks in the void spaces so they become a play space for the kids, avoiding the need for an additional room and connecting the family across levels.
Location: Coburg, Victoria
Builder: CBD Contracting
Size: 172m2
Completed: 2018
Photography: Peter Bennetts
Products used in
Harry House
Professionals used in
Harry House
More projects from
Archier
About the
Professional
Archier creates engaging architectural spaces and bespoke products, with an emphasis on honest, responsive design and efficient construction.
ARCHIER is an architectural practice with studios in Hobart and Melbourne. We work across residential and commercial sectors and have a particular interest in the relationship between architecture and landscape. We are a privately owned company and have four principals. One of our four directors is also Landscape Architect and this gives us a unique skill-set to work seamlessly across the two domains of Architecture and Landscape.
We work across a range of scales; for a range of clients. Our work encompasses residential, commercial and government architecture; public and private landscape projects; as well as the design and manufacture of furniture and lighting products
Our innovative designs are focused on material honesty, thermal performance and constructability, as we strive for affordable and responsive architecture that contributes to the public domain.
We are interested in projects that span architecture, urban design and landscape and embrace the mantra that design is delivery. Our practice utilises BIM extensively to automate and streamline our design work-flow and we are increasingly leveraging BIM to not only aid and support the delivery and construction of our work; we are also using it directly with Off Site Manufacturers to automate the production of timber based floor, wall and roof elements directly from the coordinated design model.
Our directors have over 25 years of combined industry experience and were drawn together to create an inclusive practice that is truly outcome orientated. We have won awards across a range of disciplines connected to the built environment that recognise our design excellence and innovation, along with our commitment to sustainable buildings and the environment.
As a practice, we have worked on large scale commercial projects with a construction value in excess of $100M through Joint Venture arrangements with Hayball Architects and we have lead multidisciplinary teams for complex commercial projects over $5M in value.
We relish the opportunity to work collaboratively with clients and large project teams to incorporate specialist knowledge and expertise into our work. We are data driven and focused on quality project outcomes. We have proven project experience leading complex projects in sensitive environments and have been recognised for our contextual approach to design.
We have also been awarded for our approach to sustainability and always seek not only to optimise the thermal performance of our buildings, but also to consider the life cycle cost of our material choices.
- ArchiPro Member since2023
- Follow
- Locations
- More information