A Bird-Like Composition – Erskineville Creature by Retallack Thompson

Sitting as its own bird-like form to the rear of a Victorian home, Erskineville Creature proposes a solution to the issues of inner-urban densification and housing affordability. Retallack Thompson expresses a lightness of materiality and structure through a refreshing contemporary lens.

Replacing the existing brick-clad garage to the rear of the property located in inner-Sydney, within a heritage conservation area, the aptly-named Erskineville Creature provides the client’s adult children their own separate and self-contained dwelling, to the rear of the main house. The form is defined by its lightness of materiality and composition, through a slight and minimal methodology that sees a bird-like structure emerge to along the site’s rear boundary, adjoining a laneway. The result is a refreshingly contemporary and contextually sensitive resolution.

The form is defined by its lightness of materiality and composition, through a slight and minimal methodology that sees a bird-like structure emerge to along the site’s rear boundary, adjoining a laneway.

Built by Zenovations, with engineering by Cantilever Consulting Engineers, the design sees a number of avian references emerge, with operable wing-like doorways, openings and thresholds that provide insight into the interior home within. Addressing the rear street, with its own access and carparking, the ‘creature’ sits on its own thin and towering legs, with a number of openings throughout encouraging natural sunlight and ventilation inward and access from three sides. Internally, the materiality captures a certain warmth through the application of terracotta and select paint finishes, where warm tiles and crisp datum lines introduce more contemporary elements for balance.

The structure houses a studio space with its own integrated kitchen, concealed behind robe-like joinery allowing for a level of self-containment. While designed for the client’s use as a residence at present, the space is able to be utilised for other income streams and for recreational use as a studio in the future. Complying with heritage guidelines to be a separate dwelling from the original Victorian terrace to the front of the site, Erskineville Creature also creates a purposed address to the street beyond, unlike its assortment of neighbouring garages built over many years, absent of any planning control or consideration.

Addressing the rear street, with its own access and carparking, the ‘creature’ sits on its own thin and towering legs, with a number of openings throughout encouraging natural sunlight and ventilation inward and access from three sides.

Complying with heritage guidelines to be a separate dwelling from the original Victorian terrace to the front of the site, Erskineville Creature also creates a purposed address to the street beyond, unlike its assortment of neighbouring garages built over many years, absent of any planning control or consideration.

The proposal of a secondary detached residence and studio space to the rear addresses both heritage issues and provides a veritable solution to affordability and density within inner-Sydney. With a thoughtful approach to materiality and form, Retallack Thompson offers an unobtrusive response to solving current pressing issues in contemporary Australian cities.