A House for Fleur - Clifton Hill House by Murray Barker Architects

Clifton Hill House is the story of client Fleur Glenn, and how a lifetime of curious admiration for the humble tree house and a need to downsize as her family flew the proverbial nest came together in a unique design by Murray Barker of Murray Barker Architects.

Having lived on the site for over twenty years, Fleur had seen her family embrace its geographical location and community of Clifton Hill and inevitably become immersed in its residential and cultural fabric. Watching as that same family slowly left the core home, and coming to the realisation that a smaller footprint was the logical next step for her, conversations with architect Murray Barker emerged. Tasked with utilising the unused end of the existing large narrow block, Murray Barker, founding director of Murray Barker Architects says, “The resulting home ended up being quite quirky and disjointed in terms of how it is perceived from different aspects” but ultimately it “allows for different ways of occupying between generations, guests or boarders on a single site.”

“The resulting home ended up being quite quirky and disjointed in terms of how it is perceived from different aspects.”

Born directly from the brief, as Murray describes, “the goal was to replace the existing small backyard bungalow with a two-level, two-bedroom home of modest size.” Clifton Hill House, he adds, “was designed to take advantage of the views to the south-facing garden under the large existing trees.” Driven by a connection to place, and a sense of identity formed over decades, Fleur’s inspiration was found in the very thing her ideal dream home was to sit under – the mature native gums on site, and from there the idea of the ‘tree house’ became the muse. There is an inherent familiarity in feeling secure in such a small, fuss-free dwelling, a sense of appropriate scale, warmth in materiality and a sense of lightness. All of these elements then needed to be captured in the resulting design.

“The goal was to replace the existing small backyard bungalow with a two-level, two-bedroom home of modest size.”

Murray says, “the challenge was to take these ideas but still make sense of them in the context of Clifton Hill.” He adds, “our site was positioned between four street-facing Victorian terrace houses, and the long side elevation of the main house hard-up against the street, and this in-between condition brought up a dilemma of orientation and address on the corner site.” Although purposefully small, it was important to avoid being dwarfed by the existing period homes on either side.

Equally as important was the need to remain a part of the community, so the presence of Clifton Hill House also had to be felt within the neighbouring context. Murray says, “in a way there was no real ‘front’ to the home, so the house has these competing dual aspects along the street front, with material changes on each façade,” as a means to help accentuate that presence.

A combined effort, Clifton Hill House is the coming together of like-minded purveyors of detail and craft. Built by Sanctum Homes and with landscape design by Bush Projects, due to the nature of the history of the site and its client, due respect needed to be given. Inspiring the form and its lightness on site, the tree house muse is also felt the materiality and resulting palette.

Describing the external approach, Murray says that “the front street facing corner is white and weatherboard and corrugated iron in relation to the neighbouring buildings, which is a play on the gable forms of the neighbourhood.” He adds, “the south side is black-stained timber, and relates to the form which developed out of the irregular plan, affected by the tree locations.” Internally, timber and plasterboard are used “to define the atmosphere of various zones, where white spaces feel like refuges within the woody interior and highlight the play of natural light and geometry of the rooms.”

“The challenge was to take these ideas but still make sense of them in the context of Clifton Hill.”

A home for Fleur, as a reflection of the story of Fleur, Clifton Hill House exemplifies a quaint and considered approach to downsizing. Maintaining a connection to site, community and one’s own history, as Murray says, “the project achieves the goal sensitively, within a heritage context and without the removal of the significant cluster of mature native trees.” This approach to site, combined with the inquisitive ambitions of his client provide both a commentary on and alternate approach to designing for increased density living.