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Delicate Reshaping – Arcadia Road by Plus Minus Design
Arcadia Road is situated in Sydney’s inner suburbs, three kilometres from the city centre, along a tree-lined street at the edge of a rocky cliff. It is a house with many idiosyncrasies, both original and new. With care and precision, Plus Minus Design delicately negotiates history and reality to reshape the home and extend its story.
Walking through with the architect of the new and caretaker of the original, Phillip Arnold, sole practitioner of Plus Minus Design, his pride is palpable. Phillip recounts the narrative of the project – as if it is his own history – whilst astutely pointing out these idiosyncratic moments. Some of these were known before building started, but most were discovered along the way. This sense of discovery, restraint and joy is tangible, from the finest detail to the overall scheme – the result of doing, as Phillip succinctly articulates, “as little as required, as much as necessary.”
The original Californian bungalow was built in 1925 for a furniture maker and joiner and was passed down to the next generation, who later sold to the current occupants. The ornate arts and crafts ceilings made from lath and plaster were in reasonably good condition when construction started but “required, and received, an enormous amount of care.” The decorative, solid timber columns were of unknown origin, and there was art deco wallpaper still on the walls, although it had been torn and ripped. However, behind this wallpaper was graffiti, presumably from the original dwellers. Similar to the way Mount Vesuvius’s ashes preserved the city of Pompeii, the wallpaper protected figures including a rabbi and some Hebraic text to be rediscovered almost a century later in inner-suburban Sydney. Meanwhile, on the ground, the extremely high bedrock emerged as the ever-present topography that exists before and after everything else.
Where in most cases it is easier to demolish – sometimes more affordable, or legislated – and start anew, Phillip shows the values and realities of repair. The outcome is a delicate project that awkwardly negotiates 100-year-old materials and stories with contemporary amenity; the next chapter of Arcadia.
The front portion of the home is minimally altered and mainly repaired. In the bedroom, the horsehair plaster ceiling is beautifully restored, carefully punctuated with a square skylight, whilst a small mirror sits above the nearly-full-height joinery unit, precisely following the contours of the cornice. A bright peach terrazzo ensuite is added, which contrasts with the warm, dark timber bedroom. The solid timber columns are returned to the former dining room and frame the built-in display shelves – a meeting between old and new. Inside, the graffiti is no longer, but outside the rocky terrain invariably punches its way through the courtyard as an accidental Australian rock garden.
The new extension comprises a large single room and is signified by one oversized step – or one regular seat – a motif used similarly in Phillip’s own house in Surry Hills. With an uninterrupted view out to the silver roof of the detached unit, the ‘sunken’ lounge seems to belong to a different building. The courtyard is filled with water, with the exposed bedrock visible underneath. It seems like a tranquil scene that is not to be disturbed. To Phillip’s regret, the water is to be drained, perhaps to return when the grandchildren grow older.
Across another singular large step – or one regular seat – at the level of the existing house is a concrete bridge that traverses the rock garden to the detached unit. From the laneway, the standing-seam aluminium roof subtly shines, whilst internally there are architectural moments of invention and craftsmanship to discover. A Corbusian green accent only appears when the almost-hidden screen doors are slid open or when one looks up and underneath the eaves. A recessed, in-built bath navigates the underside of the stairs and the vertical face of a translucent glazed wall align at a perfect point. A continuous handrail made of a singular roll of stainless steel folds around a noticeably thin plasterboard wall. Lighting is hidden and recessed in the perimeter of the large room of the new extension, leaving the ceiling unadorned. Even the air conditioning vents are meticulously spaced to align with the equally meticulous joinery below.
Arcadia Road is a project of precision and an almost Renaissance exercise in geometry.
Arcadia Road is a project of precision and an almost Renaissance exercise in geometry. Each junction is a point, or vertex, resolved either by design or, as in most cases, by the careful craftsmanship of the team. This level of care means there is little distinction between service, feature and commonplaceness. Everything matters because it is all important.
There is no ostentatious architectural gesture or endless list of materials and textures in this house, but a simple duty of care. Plus Minus Design has dealt in realities, gently working with the almost-century-year-old house to project its history for the future. An end and a new beginning for Arcadia.
