Renovation of a single-family house in Hod Hasharon. Before the renovation, the house was country-style, dark and old-fashioned. The entrance floor was re-designed along with the outdooor developing of the plot, while opening a new windows and creating full inside-outside connection. Changing the layout of the first floor according to the needs of the family, and Adding a second floor attic as a bedroom for the eldest daughter.
My favorite area in the house is the family lounge, originally there was closed wall, and I decided to open a huge window with a bench underneath with storage. I moved the olive tree from the entrance of the lot to the center of the new window. The window frames the tree as a picture, so we decided not to add curtains to that window.
Another space that I love is the boys’ study area on the first floor. An open space next to the staircase, where I designed a library of random cubes in three finishes white-balck-oak combined with a desk.
The colors chosen for the house are very calm, combining a great deal of wood and shades of blue and gray.
It was important for the owners to keep a very practical home with lots of storage space and still get a warm, modern, up-to-date home that matches the character of the family.
The brief – Reinvent a grand Victorian-era terrace to shift the main formal living areas from the front of the home to the more relaxed and private rear garden, one level below the street. Extend this new living space and open up the back two floors to the outdoors, and can you re-landscape the gardens while you’re there? And add a rear garage with a studio above it?
The result – The original home is now a sophisticated urban retreat suited to a busy 21st century family. A new multi-level plywood extension inserted into the main rear living room proudly distinguishes old from new and connects several levels of the house to the garden for the very first time.
A mirrored box containing an ensuite, inserted into what was formerly a second bedroom, which is still resplendent with its original Victorian ceiling and floor details, exemplifies our contemporary-meets-classic approach.
The feeling: Generous, inviting, surprising and with the new garden outlook, ultimately happy.
Eva-Marie Prineas founded Studio Prineas in 2004. Her background and passion for heritage conservation and sustainable design forms the basis of the Studio Prineas philosophy of understanding and adapting places that are already special.
Eva-Marie’s award-winning approach to design stems from an intuitive understanding of what to keep and what to cleverly adapt in her projects. She prides herself on her studio’s collaborative skills and personally invests in client relationships to ensure each project is a combined effort with a shared vision.
Eva-Marie was a co-founder of DARCH – the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) group for emerging architects, and maintains a role as guest critic at the University of Sydney. She is also an examiner for the architects’ registration exam at the NSW Board of Architects. In 2007 Eva-Marie was elected onto the NSW Chapter Council for the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and has continued to contribute to numerous juries including the AIA Awards.
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Studio 504
19a Boundary Street
Rushcutters Bay
NSW 2011 Australia
Rob established the practice, Rob Kennon Architects, in 2011 after years of experiences working with two of Melbourne’s most influential and respected design practices, Bates Smart and Jackson Clements Burrows. Prior to that, Rob worked with Bochsler & Partners.
Rob graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Planning and Design (First Class Honours) and a Master of Architecture. He was awarded the Ernest Fooks Memorial Award for Design and was selected in the Dean’s Honours List.
Located on broad sweeping ranch lands overlooking a lake, Gambel Oaks Ranch was designed to blend into its surroundings and is not visible from any public roadways.
Following natural contours, a low-profile roof nestles the predominately one-story home into the scrub oak canopy.
Entrance to the site is choreographed to slowly reveal the residence in a series of glimpses through the trees, culminating in an arrival court that constrains panoramic views. From inside the home, views build from interior spaces to distant sights: pool terrace, pasture, far-off lake, mountain peaks.
In June 2015, the Gambel Oaks Ranch residence was awarded LEED for Homes Gold by the USGBC for its innovative use of horizontal loop field GSHP, PV, HWS, and radiant heating/cooling slab thermal control technologies.
Stone was used in layers reflective of the local geology: one color matched to the distant mountains, the other caged in gabion baskets from site rock excavated for building foundations.
Private areas within three distinct Corten boxes are organized as a family compound to contain the master suite, guest suite, and garage. Public gathering spaces defined by the Corten forms flow effortlessly outdoors for entertaining.
A rambling fifties ranch house within a canyon setting was extensively remodeled in the nineteen eighties, with unfortunate results. In lieu of restoration, which seemed implausible, we opted to keep the Beverly Hills ‘ranch’ vernacular but translate it through modernism. We looked to Eero Saarinen’s 1957 Miller House for cues on incorporating modern details – framing, casework and material combinations – within a postmodern ranch vocabulary. The new interior is highly detailed and precise, with a complex system of posts, beams and brickwork, all painted in many subtle shades and finishes of white, from dead-flat to high-gloss lacquer.
The Archers
All images courtesy of The Archers
The Archers
Founded by Richard Petit and Stephen Hunt in 2002, The Archers is a team of designers, architects, artists, and cinephiles based in Los Angeles, California. The studio’s work comprises buildings, interiors and furnishings for private homes and public spaces.
The Archers is historically minded and research oriented, and although the scale and nature of the studio’s work varies dramatically, every project shares a commitment to authenticity, resonance of material, and experimentation rooted in precedent. Site-specific furniture and finishes are a defining aspect of the studio’s projects.
The Archers borrows its name from the production company of British filmmakers Powell & Pressburger. Like its namesake, the studio is collaborative and aspires to innovate. Using experience, passion and keen judgement, The Archers strive to make every space the only one of its kind.
CONTACT
The Archers
849 S Broadway #PH1
Los Angeles, CA 90014
Born February 1980, Otto Felix is regarded a reflection of the decade famous as the information age. He started as a DJ at age 13 and at age 18 he was already trained in Los Angeles as a helicopter pilot besides being a visual artist, photographer, stage designer, music producer and event producer.
In 2004 he graduated in Architecture and Urbanism from the University Paulista (UNIP), and has an MBA in marketing from the Getulio Vargas Foundation and specialized in entrepreneurship at Babson college in Boston. During his college years he discovered his taste and talent for marketing, specializing in commercial projects, corporate and retail, which require the study of market positioning.
In 2005 Otto opened the Studio Felix, who besides architecture, work with audio and design as well. Today Otto Felix focuses on exclusive projects regardless of size.
This project began with two families purchasing a large Central Austin property and subdividing it into two narrow lots to build new homes on – we were hired to design one of the homes. The clients, a young creative couple with two small children, wanted a modest house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and ample living spaces with strong connections to private outdoor rooms.
The site is in a bustling neighborhood, near a major university, so the house was set on the site to create a private side-yard the family could use as an extension of the main living space. A wall in front of the house creates a private courtyard off of the front rooms and protects them from view. Meanwhile a tectonic screen porch sits in the backyard, in contrast with the solid mass of the house in front.
The house is a mass that is carved – creating deep, shaded, openings that connect to the outside. The entire building is rendered in natural grey stucco, producing a solid sculptural form. Shadows from the surrounding trees play across its surface throughout the day.
The ground floor plan is conceived as a series of open interconnected spaces arranged around a central stair and utility core. The spaces are divided by Douglas Fir cabinetry, with a continuous ceiling. The cabinets divide the space into various uses (kitchen, study, living, and TV room) while maintaining the feeling of a large open room. An internal light-well brings daylight into the center of the house and connects the two floors, creating a surprising vertical opening through the house.
The second floor contains all three bedrooms, connected by a “bridge” that overlooks the kitchen. Each bedroom has direct access to an exterior patio or deck. “Pop ups” on the roof bring in plentiful daylight from above and create compelling space in otherwise small rooms.
Murray Legge is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York City. His professional achievements include receiving the 2006 AIA Austin Young Architectural Professional Award as well as more than 20 design awards, including two national AIA awards and the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award. Winner of the prestigious Lyceum Fellowship, he was also twice a finalist in Van Alen Institute competitions, including the Paris Prize. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and he has been a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has also been a visiting critic.
Murray is also a co-founder of Legge Lewis Legge, an interdisciplinary collaborative, based in Austin and New York. With a focus on large-scale installations, public art and landscape design, Legge Lewis Legge has been widely recognized including receiving the 2010 Austin Art in Public Places Community Arts Award. The studio received an honorable mention in the international design competition for the Flight 93 memorial and was a finalist in the Boston Logan Airport 9/11 memorial competition. Legge Lewis Legge is currently working on a project for Dallas Arboretum.
There is a lightness of touch in the careful orientation and pared back minimalism of this house on the Tasman Peninsular, which replaces a shack lost in the devastating 2013 Dunalley bushfires. Its intimate spaces are solid and protecting, yet open through expansive glazing to connect with the landscape and the vista across the bay. Budget, logistics and a high “Bushfire Attack Level” led to modular construction using prefabricated steel and precast concrete components. There are exquisite details where it counts, such as the LED and steel edge to the concrete blade, which defines the approach to the front entry.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Dunalley House on the Tasman Peninsular is a project for a young family recovering from the dramatic loss of their family holiday retreat during the devastating 2013 Dunalley bushfire. The 10ha property was left scorched and barren. The original holiday home destroyed while the family watched from the foreshore below. The client brief was for a primarily concrete building: solid and protective yet connecting with the expansive outlook across Dunalley Bay. The new building was located proximate to the water. A moderate budget and tight timeframe encouraged a semi-modular approach to construction of pre-fabricated steel and precast concrete panels. A high “bushfire attack level” rating influenced material choice. Low profile, the building stretches across the site, in response to the expansive milieu. Planning is elementary: a bunker for sleeping, and a pavilion for living, separated by a long deck that serves as both entry and axis to the bay beyond. The quiet interior allows for contemplation of changing light and weather. The deck extends on the ocean side to a fire dish, as a beacon on the bluff, a place to congregate and perhaps, a symbol of the force that transformed the property.
