Embedding Relevance – Bank Road by Shaun Lockyer Architects

Words by Bronwyn Marshall
Interior Design by Shaun Lockyer Architects

As a careful mediation between elements, Bank Road combines a sensitive approach to heritage whilst carving a contemporary relevant response in the process. Shaun Lockyer Architects acknowledges the rich history and prominence of the home’s original architect in sculpting its next chapter.

Originally the family home of Sir Walter Taylor, Bank Road’s new works aim to build upon his previously established framework and propose a series of interventions and additions that ensure his memory remains, seeing a more contemporary occupation emerge. By opening and connecting internal spaces, the heritage of the structure continues whilst also aligning with how we live today. Shaun Lockyer Architects draws from the charm and detailing of the original home to craft a respectful expansion.

Bank Road By Shaun Lockyer Architects Project Feature The Local Project Image (8)

The extensive use of timber throughout creates a warming and familiar base for the happenings of the home whilst stone insertions elevate other tactile moments and create focal points.

Located in Graceville, the warm climate calls for an open and operable series of spaces. As a handover from its original era, the home is defined by a series of formally separated spaces; creating and overlaying a new sense of connection between each allows the home to breathe and engage better with the natural elements. Throughout, a series of pavilions and courtyard spaces are created that intersect between the old and new, allowing new functioning relationships between open and closed, inside and out. The gardens themselves become core occupiable rooms within this climate and curating them as destinations ensures that they act as an extension of the house proper.

Bank Road is built by CGH Constructions, with landscape design by Greencare Landscape Management; a careful collaboration of disciplines ensures that the core design principles are established, shared and reinforced across the site. The extensive use of timber throughout creates a warming and familiar base for the happenings of the home whilst stone insertions elevate other tactile moments and create focal points. A continuation of the arched opening languages carries through from the old to the new and creates a connective element. The shared and generous living area is then framed by a more linear approach, with other subtle nods to the curve used in the transition between the two.

Shaun Lockyer Architects draws from the charm and detailing of the original home to craft a respectful expansion.

In its heavily landscaped setting, Bank Road pays homage to its past whilst opening the interior of the home to bring its occupants together. Through a focus on craft and continuing a legacy of considered detailing, Shaun Lockyer Architects ensures the narrative of the original home remains, revised with a contemporary lens.