City-Change – Spring Hill House by Owen Architecture

Augmenting its quaint inner-city site, Spring Hill House is the result of passionate clients wanting to downsize and reduce not only their physical footprint but tighten their commuting distance at the same time. Owen Architecture focuses on an efficiency in planning and optimisation, proposing the encasing green veil to embed a sense of personality amongst the streetscape.

While many, especially over recent years, have been drawn to more rural or suburban areas for lifestyle reasons, the owners of Spring Hill House wanted a city-change of sorts, moving into the inner-city of Brisbane to surround themselves with all the city has to offer. Having come from a larger property, requiring additional maintenance and a greater distance in travelling time, the intention was to find and transform a site that was within walking distance to work and school, which would still retain the essence of how they wanted to live as a family. In taking on the challenging task, Owen Architecture needed to ensure that the floor plan worked effectively, with an undercurrent of cost efficiency driving many of the resulting decisions.

By freeing up the ground level, the main living and kitchen spaces are oriented to open to a small but useable outdoor area, while the screened façade acts to clearly define the exterior bounding edges of the site.

Wanting to focus on life surrounding the home, with the house as a landing pad for the family of five, key elements that allow for a comfortable and outdoor life in Brisbane were important to the brief. Elevating the main sleeping areas to the upper level reflects a connection to the traditional Queenslander vernacular, creating greater access to incoming ventilation and passive cooling while also allowing for privacy to be retained. By freeing up the ground level, the main living and kitchen spaces are oriented to open to a small but useable outdoor area, while the screened façade acts to clearly define the exterior bounding edges of the site.

Matching the scale and form of some of the heritage workers cottages that are seen dotted in the area, the home aims to emulate the key features of its predecessor, inserting itself as a respectful response to context. The tightness of the overall form and its pyramid roof reflect the silhouettes of the nearby cottages, while the crispness of the detailing clearly plants the home as a contemporary addition. Internally, a mainly white palette ensures the scale is emphasised, creating a consistent and cohesive base for the happenings of daily life. The continuation of concrete flooring underfoot from the outdoor area on the ground floor, out into the living space, then completes the story of the home as a robust and withstanding base for family life.

The tightness of the overall form and its pyramid roof reflect the silhouettes of the nearby cottages, while the crispness of the detailing clearly plants the home as a contemporary addition.

Spring Hill House redefines the needs of a growing family, instead of looking for expanse, offering a contracted response. Owen Architecture manages to create a unique and identifiable home – and despite its limitations, it is both appeasing to the surrounds while adding and elevating the streetscape in the process.