This new residence in Mt. Eliza responds carefully to its remarkable corner site. In addition to following the contours of the land, the living and master bedroom pavilions angle off the street grid to frame the prioritized ocean views to the north and west as well as orient the primary spaces of the home to maximize the sun.
The front of the home is accessed via a cascading steel canopy covered pathway into a seemingly modest single storey home. Upon entering however, the grand scale of the residence is revealed. A truly impressive master suite has a north and east facing balcony which will allows the clients to both wake up with the morning sun and maximize the view corridor down Kunyung Road to clearly highlight the striking Melbourne skyline across Port Phillip Bay. The light flooded main entry “spine” leads to a double height void containing a floating staircase to the second living area below. The spine and stair intentionally culminate and focus the eye into a two storey window wall which greets guests with spectacular framed views across the bay.
Adding to the visual extension and feeling of space which is apparent upon entry, the stepped down open living, dining and kitchen area is just beyond the double height void. Finally, a shaded west facing deck, extends off the living area above the pool towards the sun’s final dramatic destination over the faint silhouette of the Mornington Peninsula National Park in the distance.
For over a decade, Christopher Megowan, director of M – A, has passionately dedicated himself to the study, teaching and practice of Architecture, design and development. Christopher earned a Bachelor of Architecture (5 Year professional degree) from the University of Southern California in 2008 where he received numerous honours, scholarships, grants and awards. Acting as owner, designer, and developer, he completed his first built work prior to graduating University. Since then, he has been involved in projects ranging from bar & cafe fitouts to single family homes & 50 unit mixed use developments. Prior to starting M – A, Christopher cut his teeth working for award winning Architecture practices in Los Angeles, London, and Melbourne. Christopher has taught multiple design and construction studios at the University of Melbourne and Monash University at both undergraduate and graduate levels as well as served as a guest critic in Architecture for several different courses.
Tarragona’s historical stone construction tradition, as well as the image of the Roman city walls, made us decide to treat the house’s ground floor as a dry stone plinth emerging from the ground.
The pine forest where the land is located creates a series of vertical and repetitive shadowy traces of trunks, branches and leaves. The light that sifts through the forest generates pleasant atmospheres of lights and shadows.
The first floor’s white volume, as a purer and lighter piece, rests on the stone base. Like a white ribbon, it seems to break up softly on the south facade as voids, terraces, white lattices and pergolas appear. These elements filter the light, more geometrically, but generating similar atmospheres as those of the natural environment. On the bedrooms’ terraces the lattices provide us more privacy.
The slightly sloping terrain forces us to compose the house on 3 levels, the entrance, the ground floor and terraces and garden. Integrating the position of the house to the existing ground. Its L-shaped plan embraces the space, creating a visually enclosed environment, whilst integrating it in the natural one. This move converts the rest of the garden in an area of enjoyment.
The two very contrasting types of facades, the white and the stone, are related in balance. The white facade made with a single layer of mortar and paint on thermal insulation panels prevents thermal bridges and guarantees the climate efficiency of the house. The stone facade is placed on prefabricated concrete panels. The prefabrication allows for a relative easy in construction system, reducing time, cost and waste generated on site.
The ground floor layout encompasses the house’s main rooms: living room, dining room and kitchen. This floor possesses wide-open spaces, giving maximum visual continuity with the outside terraces. The first floor overlooks the sea. This floor hosts the bedrooms, forming terraces to south protecting the interior facade from direct solar radiation during the warmer months.
The Studio Dom Arquitectura is located in Barcelona, where architectural works, landscaping interventions, ephemeral installations, interior design and refurbishments, and renovations, both in Spain and abroad are created, projected and developed.
Pablo Serrano Elorduy
Blanca Elorduy
Pablo Serrano Elorduy (Barcelona, 1979), during his studies at ETSAB Barcelona, he carried out the course “Cátedra Blanca” coordinated by Carlos Ferrater, with whom he later worked in his studio in 2003. He graduated as an architect in 2004 and in 2005 he worked at Scott Brownrigg Architecture Office in London.
Back in Barcelona, Pablo worked in Bach Arquitectes studio until 2006, when he began his own career as an architect, and in 2009 founded Dom Arquitectura.
The studio won the ideas competition for the Music School “Taller de Musics” in Barcelona. Since 2010 the studio has expanded working on projects all around Spain and abroad in other countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Angola, Brazil and the UK.
In 2014 studies the Passivhaus module, from the Master of Sustainable Design and Architecture Bioclimatic to nearly zero energy buildings.
Blanca Elorduy (Bilbao, 1951), studied Interior Designer Interior at Llar School of Interior in 1972, where she later taught. Since then she has exercised as interior designer in refurbishments of premises, homes, offices and restaurants among others. Blanca has an extensive experience in landscape architecture, with several projects in gardens, houses and renovation.
CONTACT
dom arquitectura
Studio Dom
Bordeus 22-24, Low Floor
08029 Barcelona
+34 93 410 08 14
info@dom-arquitectura.com
Situated on a secluded lot in Quogue and offering views of the bay from its rooftop terrace, this new modern house is composed of a series of stacked rectangular volumes that loosely form an L-shape. Clad in tongue-and-groove horizontal cedar and punctuated by square and rectangular windows, the house features multiple glass doors on the ground level that slide into the wall. All public spaces — living room, dining room, family room and kitchen — flow seamlessly onto the ipe wood terrace and lap pool. Above are three bedrooms, the library and a second-floor roof garden, all of which provide access to the rooftop terrace. Ground source heat pumps, an extremely well insulated envelope, and solar panels are some of the elements that provide this 3,400 square-foot house with sustainable and efficient energy.
All images courtesy of Austin Patterson Disston Architects
Austin Patterson Disston Architects
David E. Austin, AIA
McKee Patterson, AIA, NCARB
Stuart L. Disston, AIA, LEED GA
Austin Patterson Disston Architects is a full-service architectural and planning firm with offices in Southport, Connecticut and Quogue, Long Island. Founded in 1982 the firm includes three partners: McKee Patterson, AIA, Stuart Disston, AIA, LEED GA, and David Austin, AIA, and a staff of 23 — 6 registered architects, 2 LEED accredited and 12 architects/designers. The firm’s work is largely focused on bespoke projects, residential, hospitality and private clubs.
Alella is a municipality located between the Mediterranean Sea and the coastal mountain range: in a relatively short distance, the orography of the territory rises from the sea level to 400 meters high. Due to this situation, sloping areas were historically organized on terraces stabilized with stonewalls, to be cultivated. The territory outside the urban nucleus was structured by means of large farms, where large houses with different architectural, landscape, social and heritage interests were built in each one of them; those who gave name to each one of the zones that occupied. Subsequently, during the 20th century, the demographic pressure and the change in the economy led to the appearance of several urbanizations that meant the fragmentation of the territory.
The housing lot is located in an enclave between a fragmented and consolidated area with recently built buildings and another area occupied by a historical estate of the ones described above. So that it transitions between a landscape before the 20th century and another one of the present century. In its initial state, the lot presents a composition more typical of the historical landscape than fragmented. Being stabilized horizontally by means of three longitudinal containment walls – north / south direction – of three meters of height each, that structure the terrain on three terraces. It also contains an old dry stone chapel and a series of vegetation and consolidated own trees, with an interest in being conserved.
Maintaining the original character of the place becomes the main project premise. To preserve the soul and the morphology, to preserve each one of those things that make it unique and characteristic: the terraces, the retaining walls, the different elements of pre-existing vegetation and the dry stone chapel. These elements are delimited and identified to be preserved in the plant and once they have been delimited, a respectful implementation of housing directly on the existing land is established, so that the house coexists and interacts spatially and functionally with these elements. The resulting ensemble seeks to be a whole, timeless and heterogeneous, that is part of the place and the landscape. Likewise, it is proposed to naturalize the unbuilt spaces and rehabilitate and re-landscape landscaping.
The housing program consists of a living room, dining room, kitchen, rooms, studios, bathrooms, cinema, wellness area, parking for vehicles and spaces for storage, services and facilities; with a constructed surface resulting from 869m2, and therefore, a size more typical of the old stately houses existing in the municipality of Alella than of the houses built in the last half century. Due to the dimensions of the program, a strategy of implementation and hybrid landscape integration is included which includes two concepts: harmonization and monumentalization. The harmonization in terms of using the same stone in the area with which the chapel is made to finish pre-existing retaining walls, plant new Mediterranean vegetation in line with the existing one and place wood and stone together with elements of water. And the monumentalization to create a monolithic structure of reinforced concrete, punctually supported by steel pillars and lime mortar lined with the will to be a Mediterranean sculpture that emerges from a natural field that maintains its historical roots.
When analyzing the program and the size of the housing required, the volumetry is implemented through two floors in each preexisting terrace, concentrating the larger volumetrics on the two lower terraces, so that the terrace most visually exposed has the smaller volumetry. The house is structured in four differentiated levels: 181, 184, 187 and 190. The floor level 181 contains parking, wellness space, and storage areas; the floor level 184 contains the day zone; the floor level 187 contains the night area and the floor level 190 contains a study that connects with a green terrace. Each one of the rooms focuses on the different visuals that the landscape offers: the sea, the valley, the olive fields and the small neighbouring pond. As for the pre-existing stonewalls, once rehabilitated and covered with dry stone from the area, they go through the house coinciding with the most relevant spaces. The covers are landscaped with varying degrees of inclination, with the intention of visually collecting the landscape, pretending to be part of it and also pretending that from a bird sight the presence of the house is not perceived, but rather a completely naturalized terrain.
The housing structure itself provides solutions of passive solar architecture, through porches of different dimensions and pergolas of wooden beams on the southern facade. Rainwater from landscaped covers is collected in buried deposits and reused for irrigation of the unbuilt garden area. In addition, the house integrates a system of air conditioning through aerothermal technology and double-flow ventilation, which, together with the natural thermal insulation of the covers, the home automation installation, the construction system itself and the exhaustive study of the composition of the different skins of the building; they have made this house to have obtained an energy certification A.
The equipment of the house is resolved by incorporating integrated furniture that enhances the spaces in which it is part. Regarding the final materiality, it is proposed that this generates a cozy, friendly and connected home with the outside. Made with openings and pavement with stony texture that goes through the house from outside to inside and from inside to outside, and the use of neutral colours and warm wood for the rest of the materials.
A bar fridge, recessed into the rear wall of the bunker, combines with upholstered seating, planter and TV to create a highly functional pool side haven.
The rear area of this residence did not meet the requirements of a highly active family. With foresight in mind, the area was reconfigured to provide amenities for four children, parents and friends.
An existing outdoor living space was extended to include a honed masonry fireplace, AV hub and portable lounge. A timber landing separates the spa and lap pool, the pool widening at one end to provide a deeper diving area. A plywood clad bunker at the end of the pool is orientated back towards the house; lounges, planter and recessed bar fridge all provide a pool side haven for children and adults. A powder room at the rear of the bunker and an adjacent recreation terrace further contribute to a flexible and functional project.
Dan Gayfer is the founder and creative influence behind Dan Gayfer Design. After completing a Bachelor of Design at RMIT in 2005 (Hons 1), Dan pursued his dream to create a studio that integrated building, interior and exterior design – a business that today also extends to project coordination.
Since the inception of Dan Gayfer Design in 2011, Dan has consistently delivered intelligent spatial outcomes for his clients that boast responsive design and visually pleasing form. He actively pursues the marriage of aesthetic and spatial function when he designs, and this is evident in the graceful flow of his lifestyle enabling creations.
Dan Gayfer Design brings functionality and considered innovation into residential spaces. The studio embraces a collaborative approach to design, where the lifestyle needs of every client are identified and prioritised to result in outstanding and customised living spaces.
CONTACT
Dan Gayfer Design
3 Nicholson Street
Brunswick East VIC 3057
Australia
AVCIARCHITECTS provided a full modernization and interior re-design for this private villa, set in the natural beauty of an outer-London estate. The finished residence is comprised of a large multi-level living room and gallery, a conservatory and a library, a swimming pool, six bedrooms, and an annex guest wing.
Avci Architects
All images courtesy of Avci Architects
Avci Architects
Selcuk Avci and Sanja Jurca Avci established Avci Architects in London in 1989. In its first year, the practice won the top prize in the European Union biannual Energy Efficient Buildings Competition, a culmination of years of experience in sustainability, which set the tone for the direction of the practice. Although the practice specializes in many sectors in terms of programme, sustainability has become an underlying driving ethos, from the scale of regional masterplanning down to the design of a single product.
Avci Architects has designed projects in the UK as well as in Italy, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Serbia, Czech Republic, Slovenia and more recently in Turkey. Currently active projects include commercial and institutional offices, retail centres, private residential developments, and educational and cultural buildings including exhibitions and museums.
Avci Architects has studios in London, Istanbul and Ljubljana.
CONTACT
LONDON
Urbanista,
2 Eastbourne Terrace
London, United Kingdom
Graduated from University of Hanoi. After more than 10 years of practice in different international architecture offices she founded Mimya co. ( MM++ architects ) in Ho Chi Minh City in 2009.
Michael Charruault, Architect
Graduated from the french architecture school Paris-Belleville. Based in Vietnam ( Saigon ) since 2007, co-founder of Mimya co. ( MM++ architects )
CONTACT
MM++ ARCHITECTS – MIMYA
02-V10, street 6, Phuoc Kien A, Nha Be District, HCMC
This winter residence, located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, is part of a planned residential community with specific guidelines regulating the exterior design of the buildings to be “Anglo-Caribbean” in character. Our brief was to create a bright, modernist experience for the interior and courtyard while observing the detailed architectural rules of the development. Our response was to subdue the traditional forms as much as allowable, resulting in a mannerist approach to the envelope of the house, and to create an interior with articulated views to the exterior and flush with natural light. The water of the pool and the geometry of the piazza-like courtyard become integral to the experience of the interior through the use of full-height expanses of glass against the living areas of the house.
Established in Chicago in 1989, Brininstool + Lynch has been bringing rigor, vision, and elegance to diverse projects since its founding. The work is firmly rooted in the proud architectural legacy of Chicago; it unabashedly celebrates its kinship with the rigorous modernism of Mies van der Rohe, as well as its sympathy for Frank Lloyd Wright’s marriage of building and landscape. And, in the pragmatic Chicago tradition, Brininstool + Lynch is a firm whose work is as much driven by process as it is by product. The result is architecture that is as enduring and timeless as it is graceful and powerful.
When the eventual owners first visited the existing Alan Taniguchi house in Austin’s Westlake Hills, they knew right away this was the home they wanted to live in. Sited high in the hills, the original house was designed with balcony/deck access in every single room, opening up to the nature and tranquility just minutes away from downtown Austin. The 90’s home, however, desperately needed an update as well as an addition to accommodate their needs.
The remodel and addition respects the strong qualities of the existing structure and site, while enhancing it and supplementing it with additional development. The renovation portion includes a complete update of interior and exterior finishes to achieve a fresh aesthetic with clean lines. Wood and stone compliment the freshly-painted white stucco from the outside, while the interior finishes are kept simple to accentuate the sweeping views of the rolling hills. The design reworks the kitchen area for an articulated yet open kitchen/dining experience, and features flush panel walnut cabinets, white Silestone countertops waterfall edge island, and sleek Wolf appliances.
As a film producer/editor from Los Angeles, the husband needed a workspace that could be separated from the domestic life. A freestanding structure was added which acts as both a studio and a pool house. The new live/work space defines the southern edge of the pool with adjacent hot tub and BBQ area, squaring up the courtyard which was also re-designed to suit the family’s lifestyle and act as the unifying element between the buildings. The additional structure is strategically positioned to frame views to the pool, the hills, and the cactus-filled slope in the back. A wood-clad accent wall extends from the wood deck, further emphasizing the indoor-outdoor connection, with a sequence of covered patios connecting the addition to the main house. The intention is to be as much a platform to experience the surrounding landscape as it is a container to enable the flow of daily work and live functions.
A native of Austin, Matt Fajkus holds a Master in Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he completed his thesis work with Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rafael Moneo. Before going independent in 2010 and establishing MF Architecture, Fajkus achieved significant experience in architectural practice. While working for the world-renowned firm Foster + Partners in London for several years, he worked on the design of numerous high-profile, international large-scale projects. Starting at firms in 1998, he also worked on numerous small-scale award-winning projects while with Max Levy Architects in Dallas, Brinkley Sargent Architects, and Julie Snow Architects in Minneapolis. In 2012, Fajkus was awarded two AIA National Emerging Professional Awards.
In addition to leading MF Architecture, Fajkus is a Tenured Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, where he teaches courses in design, technology, daylighting and integrated sustainability. In 2013 he was recognized with the University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award – the highest teaching honor awarded by the entire school system. Additionally in 2013, Fajkus was presented with the Faculty Scholarship Award for Innovative Practice, and the ACSA/AIAS National New Faculty Teaching Award in 2012. He has co-authoring a book titled Architectural Science and the Sun, which is currently under contract with Routledge Publishers.
Fajkus is a LEED Accredited Professional and a licensed architect in the State of Texas. Fajkus was named the winner of the Engineering, Architecture and Design category at the 17th Austin Under 40 Award in 2015, and the winner of AIA Austin’s Emerging Professional Achievement Honor Award in 2017.
