Laurel Street Project
By Design Your Space
Alterations and Additions to an existing Californian Bungalow
This Californian Bungalow was originally built circa 1915 during the inner-war subdivision and development boom in the Lower North Shore. This double brick Californian Bungalow sits on sandstone foundations and has a terracotta tiled hipped roof. It was built with typical narrow proportions on a rectangular lot along the northwest to southeast axis, with a width of approximately 10m. The small front yard has a car hardstand and an access footpath to the entrance. When this house was bought by its current owners it was vacant, hardly liveable, and the old toilet was located outside in the attached laundry shed, couple of hundreds of pigeons made it their home.
The development’s brief was to create a five-bedroom home that would have a wide-open feel. The garden had to be visible from every corner of the main living space, and the kitchen, as the hub of the house, must be central, convenient, and easy to use.
The final design comprises a house with large, glazed doors and windows facing east and south, opening out to two covered outdoor areas which play an important role in connecting the interior and exterior. The location of the kitchen made use of the western wall, which required the fewest openings, minimising the exposure to the western sun. The built-in herb and fruit containers are a bonus, dividing the large island bench, and separating the preparation area from the dining area.
The original entrance and front bedrooms were maintained, keeping the original layout to the front of the house, and maintaining the front façade. Externally, the top floor merged with the Californian Bungalow look adding two bedrooms to the front of the building and a large master bedroom suite facing the rear garden.
Photography: Rebecca Lu, Hilit Einav
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Laurel Street Project
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Design Your Space studio, founded in 2008, has a multi-disciplinary holistic approach and a strong connection to the land we love to live on. We specialise in designing and delivering architectural projects that are driven by our commitment to understanding our clients and their requirements.
With over 20 years of diverse local and international experience, Design Your Space studio produces buildings and interiors of smart space solutions and elegant simplicity. For us, architecture is not just the form and mass; it is the void echoing around and within it, and the relationship with the outdoor, terrain, and orientation.
In essence, buildings, which are made by humans for humans, evolved to protect us from predators, rivals, and the elements. Igloos, mud houses, or huts are only a few examples of buildings that evolved to suit specific climatic conditions. With industrialisation, our civilisation developed a reliance on technology and machinery, and the building industry was driven away from understanding the land and the connection to its context and ecosystem. Unfortunately, exhausting resources, deforestation, cut and fill excavations, heating, and cooling buildings, became the norm.
As it stands, our impact on the Earth is vast and the climate is changing. We can no longer ignore this reality; some things must change. We need to rethink the way we construct, step away from fossil fuel, and reduce the heating and cooling demand of our buildings. The quality of construction, its airtightness, weather tightness and insulation are first and foremost as they lead to a healthy interior and lower heating and cooling demands.
Design Your Space acknowledge a new phase in building evolution is here and offers a full design and planning service which follow design standards that can withstand the range of temperatures, rainfall, and winds as they areexpected to change. The quality of construction, its airtightness, weather tightness, and insulation are first and foremost as they lead to a healthy interior and lower heating and cooling demands.
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