A Garden Portal – Kardella Street Residence by Studiofour

As a transitional portal of sorts, the addition to an existing art deco home creates a stepped journey into the garden of Kardellla Street Residence. Studiofour combines a knowing restraint together with an astute understanding of spatial relationships to carve a unique residential experience for the home’s owners.

Uniquely located with clear sightlines to the Hedgeley Dene Gardens, Kardella Street Residence is located in Malvern East. The new works see the extension of the original home’s silhouette to project outward and encase a two-storey volume supporting a connected living, dining, kitchen and outdoor space. Cleverly navigating the changing site levels as the extension projects outward, the addition deliberately steps down, integrating permanent seating into the space. The result sees a natural amphitheatre space emerge as varying ascending treads open the home up to the adjacent garden. Studiofour combines an overall bold formal approach with nuanced details and refinement to create a contemplative and connected family area.

Both in the formal elements altering and the way the spaces open up increasingly, Kardella Street Residence is imagined as a series of zones with meaningful connections to its surrounding greenspace.

As an addition to an existing art deco heritage-listed home, the new works take on similar principles of the playful and geometric period of the original home, while remaining distinctly contemporary. The extrusion to the rear offers a generous two-storey volume as it juts out from the existing structure and continues beyond the building envelope, becoming the sculptural framework for the outdoor gathering space. Key to the new works is the imbedded idea of journey and how an engagement with the site (both built and natural) evolves and unfolds as one moves through the home. Both in the formal elements altering and the way the spaces open up increasingly, Kardella Street Residence is imagined as a series of zones with meaningful connections to its surrounding greenspace.

Reinforcing its place as the modern elements of the home, the palette is one of restraint and monochrome tonality. To maintain a sense of relevance, and to ensure the spaces and details would continue to remain timeless, expression of texture and quality are achieved through select materials and finishes, with the focus clearly set on the outdoor and its greenery. Internally, tones of grey, white and black all fill the spaces, with small nods to a series of muted blue artworks, while the external approach is one of boldness, framing the building form from outside and the view from within.

Reinforcing its place as the modern elements of the home, the palette is one of restraint and monochrome tonality.

Studiofour utilises compression and release mechanisms to guide the journey through the spaces of Kardella Street Residence. The result conjures a calm sanctuary from which to engage with the landscaped garden surrounding the home.