Grandeur and Permanence – Manor Street by Venn Architects

Generously embracing its coastal location in Brighton, Manor House is imbued with a sense of grandeur and permanence through an anchoring approach to its site. Venn Architects uses restraint and a linear language to conjure a home deeply connected to its landscaped garden setting, encouraging an easy connection between inside and out.

Set amongst homes of similar size and generosity of allotment in Melbourne’s Brighton, Manor House is befitting of its name. Both in its bold linear formation and its sense of presence on site, the resulting home is one of purpose, anchored through its materiality and weighted form. As a family home envisaged as a permanent place of residence, the brief called for an optimisation of the site and its assets, ensuring the home would remain relevant. The overall embrace of the site and its garden setting acts as an extension of the lived experience of the home and allows an ease of flow between inside and out. Venn Architects responds to the site’s stepped terrain through subtle changes in level that reinforce a sense of movement, creating a home intended to age gracefully.

Venn Architects responds to the site’s stepped terrain through subtle changes in level that reinforce a sense of movement, creating a home intended to age gracefully.

Built by LBA, Manor House is an intuitive home, responding to its context and site. As each form interacts and interconnects with the next, the void spaces between allow for a pause in the whole. A layered approach is seen throughout, with the sediment of more weighted elements creating the foundation of space and then lighter features that allow for transparency and movement through zones. The extensive 1200sqm garden space is approached with a matched sense of balance and harmony where the eye is carried through bodies of water and along a formally arranged landscape.

Despite its coastal locale, the home is very much an embodiment of the overall Melbourne aesthetic, not necessarily responding with a coastal casual approach. Instead, the many elements come together with a richness of texture and deep undertones that play with light throughout the day. A palette of timber, bluestone, honed concrete and natural stone come together to form a solidified base on which the client’s own furniture, artwork and lighting collection is interwoven, softening the resulting spaces. The formal approach to site sees the garden populated by both soft landscaping and more permanent pavilion forms that slowly step and interact with the ground plan. The staggered approach allows for the creation of a variety of shelter types that subtle hint at their function, while ensuring a year-round engagement with the garden space through an imbedded flexibility.

A palette of timber, bluestone, honed concrete and natural stone come together to form a solidified base on which the client’s own furniture, artwork and lighting collection is interwoven, softening the resulting spaces.

Manor House uses subtleties and boldness to navigate its site, creating both intimate spaces to retreat and open and connected spaces to convene. Venn Architects responds to the site with clarity and conviction, seeing a classically formal approach emerge, one in which the garden is a true binding element of the home.