patullo house

1995

71 brighton street, richmond

" Through the sides of brown brick buildings can be spied a strangeness, a block of structure suspended in space, the glimmer of   a metal cone sculptured into the fabric of industrial steel and weatherboard cottages.

Shards of orange slice through the sky, a ship    funnel powers through the suburban ocean, building blocks with square cutouts sit at odd angles inside an island of houses."

IDEA The site had been a dairy 100 years ago and more recently supported a large steel shed and gantry which was used for servicing trucks. It is located in the midst of inner suburban Melbourne among century-old factories, warehouses, Victorian cottages and 1960's developer flats. The local city Council had a provision for "historic conservation" zoning on the area which applicability was not apparent on inspection, given the architectural diversity of the area, which was directed towards a requirement   of a " Victoriana" character for new buildings. Our view of the architectural context and how we might respect it with this new building, was more complex. The local tradition of steel clad industrial buildings, solid platonic forms of the cottages and steel frames held greater appeal. The house should appear to be tough and uncompromising at first glance but that would conceal a gently flowing, light, modern and spacious volume for living. PLAN Interior volumes are designed with the same concerns as for the exterior. Large open areas allow for ease of visual connections between spaces and simple basic forms - a slice of stair, boxes for cupboards, gently curved benches - maintain a sense of architectural strength within the ordinary demands of the house.   Cupboard units which are designed as for the external form of the building using strong three-dimensional forms of boxes and triangular shapes - are enhanced using colors - bright yellow, black, cyan, olive green, purple and red. FORM The form has developed from platonic shapes - cylinders, boxes, cones and cubes - assembled as if by accident which belies their origins. The ostensible 'functionalism' of the building, as if designed by a Modernist, has been radically modified by an investigation of form where the expression of function is unclear, concealed like a Mannerist building. FABRIC AND MATERIALS Materials have been color coded to exaggerate their architectural purpose   - white walls, ochre sheeting , galvanised steel structure, grey concrete drums and a few sharp pieces of bright acid orange for a fascia and olive green eaves. EXPRESSION We attempt to weld the complexity of a real building which operates in a sophisticated way as a house and design studio, with the wider world of forms and symbols. The forms - a cylinder, boxes, cones and pyramids - represent recognisable symbols of structures, things people know and understand from their earliest dealings with making things. The architectural intention is to take these basic and known symbols of buildings and enhance them - so they become symbols with MORE-ness, which device will draw attention not only to the forms of this building in particular but also to the rest of the environment, by which means people will gain a better understanding of their own environment.