Perimeter House

by Studio Bright

The Perimeter House by Studio Bright brings a vibrant contemporary charm to an otherwise bleak industrialised area.

Bound on all edges by a vibrant industrial context of brick factories, businesses and warehouses, the modest site for this new addition is a small island within what is a lively and active industrial precinct. With its existing heritage cottage at the sites northern end and its industrial use overlay, this new addition is driven by ideas of opportunistically working with the sites unusual and charged conditions.

The potential was for a house that offered all the qualities of domesticity; refuge, seclusion and calm but that was bound by the unique characteristics of Abbotsford’s industrial history. These extreme site conditions carry through into a series of smaller moves and spaces that drive the entire scheme. At the scale of site, the form of the house can be understood as a perimeter condition; an expanded edge that sits hard up against the site boundary and in doing so, wraps and encloses the domestic program.

From the western street frontage, the new form of the house reads as a brick facade that extends from the weatherboard clad existing Victorian cottage. At the second level, brickwork gradually opens up to become a perforated brick screen for the roof top deck. This potted garden with views directly into tree canopies creates at one end another refuge secluded space and at the other a highly visible place to engage with the street and surrounding buildings.

The relationship of the house to its context is sympathetic and yielding as well as opportunistic. With its perimeter walls built hard up against the site boundary, the new brick facade of the house directly references that local industrial vernacular whilst gently alluding to its residential typology through the placing of openings and the pitched roof at the sites northern end. From within the house however, and in contrast to the industrial precinct, the upper level deck and the views look directly into the canopies of surrounding established trees whilst all new living spaces face directly into the protected courtyard area with select views offered to the adjacent street scape.

In a move to locate the new kitchen and dining space so they were orientated to the north, the form of the house sweeps along the western edge expanding at the southern end to accommodate the living areas. Connecting the existing building to the new kitchen and dining space is a corridor space – an active threshold condition – that defines the western street edge.

A series of programs is then dispersed along its path (an alternative to the second living room); a new study for all the family, living space and music nooks are worked into this new circulation spine. With one side of this western edge threshold pushed hard up against the street and the other side opening to a centrally located courtyard space, inbuilt pool and fire place, this strip of building works between public and private whilst offering places for engagement with the active street edge and places for children to peek out and play.

Perimeter House by Studio Bright has received the following critical recognition:

2017 Think Brick Awards: Kevin Borland Masonry: Winner

2017 Victorian Architecture Awards: Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions): Winner

2017 Houses Awards: House Alteration and Addition Under 200m2: Shortlisted

2017 Houses Awards: Outdoor: Shortlisted

2017 Houses Awards: Heritage: Shortlisted

2017 Australian Interior Design Awards 2017: Residential Design: Shortlisted

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