Flipping Tradition – Fleming Park House by Cloud Architecture

Conceived through an upside-down approach, Fleming Park House elevates its living spaces to engage with key views and surrounding tree canopies, while submerging the more passive zones on the ground floor. Cloud Architecture embeds flexibility as a core principle into the deliberately dynamic floor plan, allowing for changed iterations and functionality over time.

In its Brunswick locale, Fleming Park House is a welcomed insertion as a creative and non-conventional solution to a residential dilemma. Accommodating its generous family of five teenage boys, the total of seven residents required a sense of flexibility to ensure the home connected with its occupants and could alter over time when needed. The approach, therefore, focused on creating zones instead of pre-determined spaces, which mould and adapt for the family as their needs continue to change. In a similarly non-traditional approach, the home itself is flipped – key living areas are positioned on the upper floor, allowing an engaged view with neighbouring landscape, foliage and canopies. Cloud Architecture cleverly navigates the challenging site by integrating the natural and the build, creating key connections beyond the built envelope.

Cloud Architecture cleverly navigates the challenging site by integrating the natural and the build, creating key connections beyond the built envelope.

Built by Creative Energy Homes, Fleming Park House sits unlike its Victorian-era neighbours in scale and proportion. The two-storey form allows for an arrangement of up to five bedrooms, with the potential to be utilised for additional purposes as needed. The comprising elements and informality embedded throughout the structure allows for a more contemporary occupation of the shared silhouette. The overall form is seen as a starting point, from which elements and planes are pulled outward to create covered decks or pushed inward to create internal courtyards. The initial regular form then becomes increasingly articulated based on the need to bring in natural light and allow the internal function to expand outward.

A fitting palette of robust and low maintenance materials are adopted to create a home of lasting relevance. This foresight of materiality suitably fits the necessities of such a large family, but also matches the knowing and expected use of wear and tear. Polished concrete, timber and tile flooring form the home’s base, while light-coloured timber conceals key storage and amenity. A play on function and saturation sees the more passive sleeping areas on the lower floor encased in a much darker and subdued palette; on the upper floor, a lighter and open series of finishes match the energy of shared occupant living.

The overall form is seen as a starting point, from which elements and planes are pulled outward to create covered decks or pushed inward to create internal courtyards.

In carving its own path, Fleming Park House emerges as individual; Cloud Architecture has created a home that uniquely reflects its occupants and how they wish to engage with their home over time.