Steeped in Tradition – Wimba by Bryant Alsop Architects

Imagined as the forever home of its growing family, Wimba draws on the surrounding heritage of the area and instils a similar timelessness in the resulting spaces. Bryant Alsop Architects layers notions of tradition and an enduring nature to ensure the home can remain relevant and feel grounded in place.

In the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Wimba embraces familiar elements while ensuring the garden is a vital and integral decider functionality. Drawing from the established nature of the landscape and neighbouring homes of diverse heritage, the multiple-level home is intended as a sensitive proposal that aligns with the context it is immersed within. While the home is new, Bryant Alsop has ensured that its presence remains conducive to the pre-existing, as a sense of rhythm continues across the façade and front interface to blend into the context.

The mix between contemporary and crisp insertions with a more traditional approach is seen throughout, allowing the home to be a fusion of the two.

Built by Clancy Construction, Wimba combines the robustness needed of a family home within a more traditional and generously scaled setting. A similar silhouette as the adjacent homes continues and sees a combination of four bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, study and playroom combine with an open and connected living, dining and kitchen space. At the core of the home is a love of gardening. Opening the interior to the landscape was a core and defining directive of the brief, allowing a spill over between the two. Extending outward, the connection and free flow between inside and out is made even easier through the full-height steel and glass doors that help dissolve the threshold.

As a unifying gesture, the traditional verandah acts as a transitional space, as well as working to bind the interior with the densely populated landscape. While the home sits on a sloping site, the directional drop-off from the street level backwards allows the overall mass of the home to be concealed and a more modest form be presented to the street. With the constant movement between inside and out, a consistent flooring that can withstand the transition runs through, while timber in some areas adds a textural warmth and connects back to a period home. The mix between contemporary and crisp insertions with a more traditional approach is evident, allowing the home to be a fusion of the two and allowing it to age gracefully, not embedded within one period or style.

Opening outward, the connection and free flow between inside and out is made even easier through the full-height steel and glass doors that help dissolve the threshold.

Through its humble lens, Wimba combines a sustainable heart with a sensitive outlook to ensure its continued relevance in place. In bridging styles, Bryant Alsop also aims to bridge time in a way, allowing the owners to make the home uniquely theirs.