Sofia-Rose House
By Noho Architecture
The Brief
Walking up the garden bed path of Sofia-Rose house, our clients start to unwind and let go of the stress of the day. They’ve arrived home.
Sofia-Rose house is a renovation for a family who wanted a sustainable home with more space, light and character. Their brief was to improve internal comfort, reduce energy costs and add another bedroom for their twin teenage daughters who were sharing a room.
Before engaging us as their architect, our clients were set to use a project home company with a plan to flatten the site and start again. However, their desire for a custom and sustainable home led them to Noho Architecture. Together we uncovered ways to design for their daily rituals and created a home that was tailored for them.
Our Design Solution
To suit the growing needs of the family, we reconfigured the layout to include three large bedrooms, a spare room and two bathrooms. The layout is flexible and allows family members to be separate and together. A concealed sliding wall can close off the living space from the kitchen and dining room, which is handy when the girls have their friends over.
We made vast improvements to the existing house to make it comfortable and energy efficient all year long. This meant stepping up the insulation, adding roof solar panels, using tinted double-glazed windows and keeping much of the footprint intact. Now the new fireplace warms the entire house in winter and the living space opens up to a refreshing breeze in summer. The new layout also lets northern light stream into the common spaces through large sliding doors and skylights above the kitchen.
The home has a stronger connection to the landscape at the entrance and to the backyard. Since we raised the ceiling in the kitchen, we also lifted the awning over the patio, giving the illusion of a larger space. Our clients love the new pool and make it part of their routine to swim in it every day.
Sofia-Rose house is a home that supports our clients’ daily habits. It has a neutral and classic material palette for the family to impart their own personality. It’s a home that can grow with them and adapt to the next phase of their life.
Photography – The Guthrie Project
Professionals used in
Sofia-Rose House
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Noho Architecture
About the
Professional
Noho Architecture was founded by Justine Money, a British-Maori-Australian Architect who brings a strong cultural sensibility to the practice. This translates into working very collaboratively with other partners across the various design and building phases – including master builders, surveyors, engineers and other consultants – to create homes that cohesively intertwine architecture, interiors and landscape in an environmentally sensitive way.
As an experienced Architect and businesswoman – who has worked in various capacities in the profession since 2001 – Justine understands the magnitude of each clients’ investment, both financial and emotional, and positions herself as an expert guide, steering clients through what might appear to be a daunting process. She draws upon years of experience and technical knowledge to guide clients through the myriad challenges of her five stage design-to-delivery program, to ultimately hand over homes that exceed the brief, and which her clients love spending time in.
Keen to ensure that Noho’s future projects will minimise their environmental impact on the planet – and deliver lifecycle savings to clients – Justine was awarded the pro-clima Certified Passive House Designer Scholarship 2019.
This latest qualification positions her as a leader in the design and delivery of sustainable homes and buildings, with a focus on human comfort and health, energy and resource efficiency and affordable design and construction costs.
In her previous capacity as an Associate at Eeles Trelease Architects, Justine worked across a range of project types and scales including multi-residential apartment buildings and aged care facilities, with budgets of up to $15 million, and public assets such as community centres and surf life-saving clubs.
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