Animated Movement – Hopscotch House by John Ellway

Hopscotch House celebrates playfulness and curiosity and features a discovery-based approach to movement throughout the home. John Ellway expands an existing home to optimise its restricted site, focusing on bringing in natural light and ventilation with operable elements that encourage interaction with the architecture.

Located in Brisbane, Hopscotch House weaves itself around five distinct courtyard garden spaces. Offering both privacy and seclusion from the surrounds, the access to outdoor spaces highlights the importance of an indoor-outdoor connection for the owners. Coming together as a combination of vertical and horizontal planes, these areas compose a significant interplay of light and shadow throughout the day. Through a series of intervening planning and formal gestures, John Ellway ensures the home can remain open yet feel secure. Creating both introspective and outward facing moments was key to the brief.

Through a series of intervening planning and formal gestures, John Ellway ensures the home can remain open yet feel secure.

Oriented to the north to capture optimal light and heat, the outdoor courtyard spaces respond uniquely to the site. Mediating the effects of the elements, the ability of the volumes to be opened to such an extent also allows the building to breathe and reduces a reliance on external energy sources. An assortment of deliberately interconnected walls, roofing and operable elements become a symphony of weather mediation, whilst solid shutters elegantly conduct airflow and control incoming rain. Softening the transitions between the encasing building envelope, the landscape plays a vital role. In particular, the courtyard adjacent to the kitchen acts as an extension of the needs of the space, with edible plantings easily plucked.

To the front, public and private domains come together in a garden with no defining fence. Giving some of the prized outdoor space back to the public realm shows a generosity of spirit and want to connect and be immersed within a larger community. A palette of timber and rendered block walls provide both a light and anchored integration into the site, holding thermal changes within the increased mass in some areas, and allowing a light and more transient feeling in others. A veil of vines allows the architecture to become encased in the landscape over time and responds to seasonal changes.

Giving some of the prized outdoor space back to the public realm shows a generosity of spirit and want to connect and be immersed within a larger community.

As an open and connected home, Hopscotch House facilitates both gathering and intimate retreat. In response to the context and existing vernacular, John Ellway respectfully listens to the needs of the owners and the area. The result sees an inviting and cocooning home emerge.