An Inward Focus – Queens Park House by Kyra Thomas Architects

Redefining the residential experience, Queens Park House inverts traditions and expectations, embracing a unique immersion amongst established gardens. Kyra Thomas proposes an introverted family home of her own, focusing on key connections between the built and the natural.

Arranged on a battle-axe site, Queens Park House sits nestled amongst existing residences. The design reimagines what it is that makes a home. While the traditional home has a front-facing entry, accessed as part of a rhythm amongst the streetscape, the opportunity to transform a previous warehouse space that sits between such residences provided a rare opportunity to create a unique home. As owner and architect, Kyra Thomas was able to be experimental in her approach, testing ideas without the filter of a client and pre-conceived expectations. The result sees a privately secluded home that sits to the rear of other surrounding residences, hidden in a way, as its own private escape.

As owner and architect, Kyra Thomas was able to be experimental in her approach, testing ideas without the filter of a client and pre-conceived expectations.

Build by BAU Group, with landscape design by Fieldwork, the home is accessed by two long driveways at either end, resulting in multiple entry conditions, eliminating a traditional street presence. In its position, the home sits surrounded by some 22 other properties, all with the potential to overlook into the home. Key to the success of the home is the buffering quality of the landscape, as a living and breathing contributor to family life. Creating a sense of privacy was one of the major challenges in repurposing the previous self-storage warehouse space into a home, and through the careful interweaving between landscape and form, the spaces feel calm and concealed. As a blank canvas of sorts, the raw brickwork and concrete provided the ideal canvas to reimagine the spaces through a minimal and restrained lens, while still retaining the existing character in parts and expressing its aged patina as memory of its past life.

Within the walled context of the new insertions, an openly connected family home weaves around key open courtyard spaces. Large full-height glazing sits within thin framework to allow the garden to feel part of the home, without the distraction of excessive detail. A similar approach is used throughout, with a consistent and muted materiality and palette. The near monochromatic palette is balanced with timber elements adding warmth, while the concrete flooring connects the home back to its industrial roots.

Creating a sense of privacy was one of the major challenges in repurposing the previous self-storage warehouse space into a home, and through the careful interweaving between landscape and form, the spaces feel calm and concealed.

Through focusing in on the quality of the spaces and the access to the natural elements, Queens Park House emerges as a considered and refined home. With this project, Kyra Thomas Architects has shown that adaptive reuse can be both sophisticated and resonating.