Living Apart Together – Engawa by Arcke

Integrating the landscape as a key element of the home, Engawa combines multigenerational living across multiple levels with an ingrained playfulness. Arcke focuses on the experience of the spaces and their ability to be opened and closed as needed, emphasising a sense of both connection and separation.

Sharing a similar sensibility as its neighbouring homes within Northgate, the design reinterprets the vernacular of the traditional Queenslander home through a modern lens. The Queenslander’s use of timber, elevation of the upper level and the ability to open and close remain in place, while a more refined and considered palette also brings warmth to the spaces. As home to multiple generations, the brief called for an undercurrent of flexibility throughout, where the different residents could feel like they occupied their own residence while also being connected and easily accessible across the levels. Arcke carefully integrates the garden as an extension of the interior spaces, allowing a free flowing of movement across the traditional built edge threshold.

As the areas of the home shift over raised and sunken platforms, consideration has been given to the way all ages can easily access all areas without compromise.

Balancing a privacy from the street that is matched from within at the same time, a series of gestures allow a filtering of light and visual access into the home. Built by Mair Constructions and with landscape design by Dan Young, Engawa takes influence from a traditional Japanese garden in a number of ways, adjusted in a response to context. From the winding and directed journey through the landscape with deliberately created vistas, the layout aims to create moments of focus. A similar approach is used internally, delineating the private and public areas and creating a sense of natural separation between them. While the home has its own open face that engages with the street, behind the façade the recessive spaces intertwine.

As both a renovation and extension effort, elements from the original home are retained based on their relevance moving forward and become emphasised with an enhanced application of connection to facilitate movement. In bringing the occupants together, the design needing to cater for differing ages and embed accessible gestures throughout. As the areas of the home shift over raised and sunken platforms, consideration has been given to the way all ages can easily access all areas without compromise. A natural palette then completes the picture of the home, combining expressed timber and painted elements that connect to the landscape and playful insertions of varying tones that add an unexpected quality.

Built by Mair Constructions and with landscape design by Dan Young, Engawa takes influence from a traditional Japanese garden in a number of ways, adjusted in a response to context.

Through an enriched materiality, Engawa is grounded firmly in place. Arcke takes cues from the surrounding and established rhythm of the neighbourhood, carefully crafting a revised addition for the home’s inhabitants.