Chatswood House Alterations Design by MCK Architects

April 30th, 2009 - Posted in Homes Renovation

Marsh Cashman Koolloos Architects [MCK Architects] has designed an alterations and additions to an existing California Bungalow house ‘The Chatswood House‘ located in a Heritage Conservation area of Willoughby Municipality. The architects philosophy was to address client needs while meeting all constraints imposed by a conservation area context. Central to this approach was a decision to limit visibility of the addition from the street, maintaining the prominence of the bungalow façade. Similarly, the rear lane garage alteration followed the stepping articulation of the rear lane garages.

chatswood house design

The architects main ideas for all of their projects are notions of journey, spatial experience, ambiguous space and transition between inside and outside, all present in the scheme for the Chatswood House. Further to this, aspect and orientation and the need to maximise solar access to the interior, budgetary and site area constraints and the need to maximise the potential of the site and program were underlying principles of the design.

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The additions to the house are sympathetic to the context with a choice of materials and scale that allows it to sit comfortably within its street (and lane) scape. The choice of face brickwork to the additions reinforces this intention matching the brickwork to the existing bungalow and to similar houses in the street. The roof, in aluminium sheeting, folds to open to the north to allow sunlight and ventilation into the central living areas through glazed operable louvres. The shape of the roof although a contemporary form also responds to the sloping tiled roofs adjacent.

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The land rises from entry to rear lane with a steep rise from the rear of the existing house to the yard and garage level at the laneway. The proposal addresses this by stepping the plan at the point of junction between old and new, both reinforcing the movement into a new and different space and allowing the transition to appear easier. This main living space opens onto a central lawn area sandwiched between the addition and the rear pavilion forming a courtyard space that interacts with both.

chatswood house alterations

The rear garage pavilion is a multi purpose space with a rumpus room come office space, storage and of course car space. It was the intention to make this building a space that had a strong connection to the kitchen/living pavilion, for reasons as simple as surveillance of the children while cooking, and for reasons of maximising the possible indoor and outdoor living and entertaining spaces. The garage can have the cars removed to allow a larger kids room or party room on occasion. The glass walls separating these pavilions from the grassed area creates an apparent size that would be halved if a more traditional and solid treatment of walls were made.

white dining room interior

The design addressed issues of sustainability through the use of passive solar principles, water harvesting and reuse and the reuse of salvaged building materials. The cost/value outcome was successful with a reasonably low cost per square meter. The choice of materials and structure,prioritising, and reuse of existing building etc have provided a cost effective result.

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