Highgate Hill Home
Designed by JDA Co. and located near the Brisbane River, Highgate Hill Home is a three-bedroom, two-storey residence that minimises energy consumption and maximises family comforts. From the street, the home appears humble and unassuming. However, upon entering the property, residents and visitors enjoy incredible sight lines through to the river. The design incorporates numerous green initiatives including clever positioning of roof-top solar panels (to help preserve the property’s dense vegetation), insulated windows and doors, Low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) paints and low-maintenance timber and metal cladding. A large central rooftop void, cathedral ceilings and elevated windows usher in natural light and breezes throughout the interior.
Determined to touch the ground lightly, JDA Co. worked closely with engineers to incorporate a wide structural span usually reserved for commercial projects. This strategy reduced the number of structural columns and cut back on the amount of earthmoving equipment required on site.
By JDA Co
Photography by Mindi Cooke
Brisbane Region
Houses - New
Category
Brisbane Region
Houses - New
Category
Brisbane Region
Houses - New
Category
Bardon Esplanade
From the outset, we were committed to design and build our own simple, intelligent, cost-effective home to take advantage of the long northern aspect, steep narrow block, spectacular western views towards Mount Coot-tha and adjacency to the natural beauty of Ithaca Creek.
The fundamental design principles are derived from Modernism (International Style), driven by value and efficiency, resulting in simplicity and clarity of form, eliminating unnecessary detail, rejecting ornament and embracing minimalism. A rigorous structural grid and domestic timber frame and truss arrangement reduced fabrication and construction time and cost.
A simple material palette is applied across the entire house to visually enlarge the spatial perception of the volumes, creating cohesion. Logical design, orientation and the use of a structural exoskeleton, allows for the maximum use of glass (standard glass) which expands the spatial experience, creating light, naturally ventilated living volumes.
By S3
Photography by Cam Murchison Photography
Earl Parade
The Earl Parade project explores an alternative approach to small lot housing in the subtropics. The house is centred around an “internalised” garden room – a significant two-storey volume host to a verdant subtropical garden and family gathering space.
Located in Manly, Brisbane, the project is finely calibrated to its bayside setting. The program of the house is contained to an efficient plan on the southern half of the site, establishing a favourable and broad aspect along the house’s long, north-easterly façade. This strategy enables daylight access and ventilation to the full depth of the plan, through all seasons of the year.
The project endeavours to eliminate the disconnect between built form and landscape, through the poetic arrangement of space, light and void. It exemplifies how spatial consideration and thoughtful planning can be deployed to create a delightful experience within low-cost housing, prioritising space and comfort over details, products and style.
By Cavill Architects
Photography by Christopher Frederick Jones
Highvale House
Highvale House sits amongst native gums on a sloping site. Perched on posts to disturb the land as little as possible – this raised position provides vistas through branches to the valley and hills beyond.
Wrapped in metal cladding, the house speaks to a rural Australian vernacular and reads as a singular element, both sculptural and responsive to the local climate. The singular form has deep reveals in the plan, forming decks, gardens and a resting place to provide indirect light to permeate deeper into the plan and bringing protected openings closer to the occupant for more direct ventilation.
The timber used throughout the interior and exterior is Tallowwood, a type of Eucalyptus found in the region – referencing the location and further heightening the experience of this rural setting.
Internally, the program borrows from traditional Japanese elements, marrying the clients’ cultural heritage with a kind of local regionalism.
By Alexandra Buchanan Architecture
Photography by Andy Macpherson
New Farm House
New Farm House is an inner-city oasis that embraces the long, sloping site on which it sits. The overarching goal was to achieve harmony with the environment and integrate as much landscape into the house as possible – which meant building less house and more garden. The largely un-enclosed lower floor is made up of spaces that, while undercover, feel much more like a garden. Inside, the occupants can manage breezes and the sunlight to suit their own comfort and amount of privacy, by manipulating the skin of the building. In plan, the house is segmented into three pavilions allowing each room to vent into adjacent voids and be open to views of the intermediate gardens. As a cherished ‘forever home’, New Farm House is designed for much of home life to be lived outside in the mild subtropical climate, celebrating openness and the Australian landscape.
By Tim Bennetton Architects
Photography by Toby Scott
MinokO
Minokõ, a family beach house, provides shelter in its highly exposed location while delivering stunning views and protected indoor and outdoor spaces. An external copper shell and burnt timber cladding allow the building to weather into its environment. External timber battens, milled on the client’s rural property, and other long-life materials enhance the natural response to its location.
The section follows the extraordinarily steep hillside and the setbacks for this narrow block taper the north and south facades up to the whale watch which gives close to 360degree views up and down the coast and inland to the island’s forested ridges. The desire for connection to ground has resulted in protected court-yards at the 3 entry levels all providing framed views of beaches and bushland.
By Conrad Gargett
Photography by Christopher Frederick Jones
Winship Shed
Winship Shed is a three-bedroom, family home built on a steep infill block in the Brisbane suburb of Red Hill. Conceptualised as a ‘jewellery box’, the home presents a tough and protective exterior that belies a delightfully soft and liveable interior. The client’s brief was for a modest, family home with a simple form under-pinned by a logical structural rhythm. The home draws inspiration from the old brass foundry shed perched on the opposite side of the valley and the traditional Queenslander character of the neighbouring houses and so the ‘suburban shed’ was born. While the home is private and protected from the outside, like the jewellery box that inspired its design, it provides a bold juxtaposition to the light and material richness found within the home and the joy in discovering the spaces and details within. Winship Shed is well orientated to the north-east, maximising natural light and ventilation.
By Reddog Architects
Photography by Christopher Frederick Jones
Live Work Share House
The Live Work Share House comprises a house, office, and self-contained flat. We have called the project by this name as we designed it as a test case for the way in which flexible adaptable living and working could be achieved on a suburban block. The need for such housing types is pressing given the issues of housing affordability, the need for more smaller homes given the reducing prevalence of the nuclear family, the increasing numbers of people working from home (especially now in these Covid times), and the need to densify to sustainably house a growing population.
The principle aim of the design was to ensure that the live/work/share components happily co-exist whilst achieving for each component an obvious entry, engagement with the street, visual and acoustic privacy, passive ventilation, good solar access, and connection to greenery and outdoor spaces.
By Bligh Graham Architects
Photography by Christopher Fredrick Jones
