Refined form and materiality with an urban street presence - literally on the street alignment, Little Richardson has been recognised as a exemplar home demonstrating compact living in a leafy inner suburb of Melbourne. An arrangement of horizontal and vertical strip windows in the red-brick façade extending some of the existing openings / patching in others. The form robustly occupies the laneway corner, a sculptural intent and important to reuse the existing structure where possible as a conceptual and contextual strategy. It was important to seamlessly connect courtyard to living space - you enter the house when you enter the courtyard, and this sense of landscape connection is important to environmental sensory design, improving psychological wellbeing.

Interior materiality was explored through the haptic; consideration of daylight effects to a condensed palette exploring 4 elements and their relationship to the body; the paring of white spaces with the tonal richness of dark tiled spaces to wet areas, concrete; inside-outside on the ground floor, external stair and roof-deck cladding above, and various oak timbers defining the ceiling plane and joinery. As Derek John Clements-Croome writes; “We link our perceptions about materials through our senses … they hold memories of activities ….. in other words, materials can hold our emotion"...

YEAR : 2020

LOCATION : Albert Park

SITE AREA : 59.6m2

Awards

2021 Interior Design Excellence (IDEA) Awards, Shortlisted

2021 TIDA Runner-up, Architect Designed Kitchens

2021 RIDA High Commendation, Architect Design Bathroom