Constructed over ten years, Alphington House has been ‘slow cooked’.
This richly-detailed home has a Japanese read and has evolved and responded to time, pragmatics, and whim.
Dreaming, imagining, and ambitiously building has created a home of possibilities.
The final outcome here, designed by Meaden Architecture and Interiors and owned by an established and well-regarded Melbourne painter, includes the restored 1950s front façade.
The new works lookout to the Yarra River parklands beyond.
Views into the park and leafy treetop canopies are carefully trimmed and framed with little evidence of the surrounding suburbia.
Northern winter sun is channeled deep into the house through a cranked roof.
Massive stone walls absorb and release winter heat keeping the building temperature constant and comfortable.
Experientially the building is complex, open yet closed, bedded in the earth yet light and open to the sky.
Compositionally, the forms are both exuberant within a frame of order.
Materials are natural, raw, and industrial including quarry granite, recycled timbers, ply ceilings with steel windows and doors.
Expression of detail, craftsmanship, and artistry is evident throughout.
The project is designed to cater for the evolving needs of a typical family.
Today it provides a generous home for a family of five, a large studio space for an architectural practice with a roof top garden.
Tomorrow it could transform into three apartments.
The building is well-mannered, low maintenance, and easy-on-the-pocket to run.
It provides a diverse and flexible environment, a well-equipped vehicle that has the capacity to adapt into the future.
The brief was to create a building that connected to the surrounding parklands whilst screened out suburbia .
The building needed to be able to adapt to new needs as its occupants changed, it had to be able to evolve and modify.
For now it is a family home.
The main challenge this project faced was a modest budget. Sp everything was built on site over time on as funds were available to the growing family.
The solution to this constraint was for the owners to live in and build progressively, moving to different parts of the building whilst other parts were being constructed.
In terms of design, the building is sandwiched between neighbouring buildings.
Meaden Architecture and Interiors screened these out by scooping out the middle of the new structure and building along the site edges.
The house wedges itself into the ground and extends east towards the parklands emerging as a three level form.
The roof is lifted towards the north allowing light and sun to penetrate deep within the structure.
In winter the building is filled with sunlight, yet in summer the wide eaves shade out the sun.
Project Details
Project size – 420 m2
Site area – 620 m2
Completion date – 2008
Building levels – 2
Project Team
Architecture
Meaden Architecture and Interiors
Meaden Architecture and Interiors is a small architectural practice based in Melbourne.
Since their humble beginnings in 2001, they have delivered innovative and intelligent projects within the institutional, education, hospitality, and residential sectors.
Photography
Parallax Photography
David McArthur leads Parallax Photography, a Melbourne based studio.
Apart from creating architectural and interiors photography for architects and designers, David undertakes advertising, editorial, industrial, and annual reportage photography for brands like Agilent, Amcor, Enjo, Bruker, Mobil Australia, The Austin Hospital, and Tabcorp from his St Kilda East studio.
Click on a thumbnail image to enlarge.
Design © 2020 Meaden Architecture and Interiors. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2020 David McArthur. All Rights Reserved.
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