Familiar Warmth – Wood Street by Insider Outsider
Warm and textural, Wood Street responds to both its coastal milieu and a want to create a simplified structure in place, reflecting a matched and uncomplicated calm. Insider Outsider draws from the known and familiar style of the area while also elevating the typified home as a place of true retreat, unencumbered.
Nestled into Flinders amongst other established homes, Wood Street is its own unique address while also offering itself as a considered insertion in place. Looking to connect to the existing story and style of the area, the proposal emerges as a contemporary interpretation of coastal living, specifically within a suburban context. With consideration of the neighbouring properties, openings, sightlines and the overall orientation comes together as an interactive element of the surrounding and existing pieces, ensuring optimised comfort for the owners from within. Insider Outsider follows the natural contours of the site and, together with builders Loreco, establishes a design language that is both contemporary and appropriate to the area.
Surrounded by landscape design by Katie Westle, the home intentionally feels as though it has been in place for years, with native plantings populating the garden and adding to the story of the home as a low maintenance and sustainable proposition. By allowing façade elements to open and close, the home is naturally ventilated and located to optimise solar gains throughout the year. By reducing the embodied energy through considered material selections and a reduced reliance on outside energy, the home achieves a 7.5 star NatHERS rating. In capturing solar energy, water and by reducing emissions, Wood Street celebrates how when sustainable systems are integrated as a core part of the design, they can also guide the resulting design, avoiding feeling like an additional or notional series of elements.
The surrounding exterior timber that encases the form connects back to some of the original homes in the area and to a known coastal aesthetic. However, through a heightened level of detail and execution, it also acts to crisply outline a cohesive overall form. Needing to function as a coastal home as well as be a suitable addition within its township required a balancing of priorities; consequently, the home is spread over two levels and focuses on simplicity. In both how the home could be built and in its resulting form, by stripping the unnecessary, a foundational base is created as the stage for the coming chapters for its owners.
Surrounded by landscape design by Katie Westle, the home intentionally feels as though it has been in place for years, with native plantings populating the garden.
