Julius St

By Archier

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This project was about making the most of a small intervention. Even though the renovation at Julius Street only added 10 square metres, the change was substantial. Our clients, Lara and Eddy, enjoy cooking and gardening, so we focused our response accordingly.

The original house was a double fronted brick home from the post-war period. The layout was typical of the time, and wasn’t encouraging of Lara and Eddy’s growing family. The kitchen faced south-east, cut off from natural light, and was disconnected from the rear courtyard, which could only be accessed through the laundry.

Our idea was to connect the heart of the house to the garden. This was achieved by pushing the kitchen and dining space from the rear of the house into the area occupied by the old laundry, which was housed in a lean-to attached to the rear of the dwelling. This connected Eddy, always outside through his love of gardening, with Lara, whose passion for cooking kept her in the kitchen. It also reorientated the kitchen and dining spaces to the north, offering better access to natural light and a direct access to the rear courtyard.

This was our first project using BINQ windows, Australian made and manufactured double glazed windows. We did so with a three metre long sliding door that opens up the dining area to the courtyard, the frames of which act as a structural element. This enabled us to float a thin roof over two large expanses of glass, immersing the kitchen into the garden, which was also extended right up to the edge of the house.

We also used SIPS, an innovative and new product in Australia, which we previously used in our Five Yards House. The combination of SIPS and BINQ enabled a really rapid first stage of building, the completion of which took a matter of days rather than weeks.

Location: Coburg, Victoria

Builder: Fenster and Panel

Construction: Structural Insulated Panel

Size: >50m2

Completed: 2016

Photography: Ben Hosking

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Archier creates engaging architectural spaces and bespoke products, with an emphasis on honest, responsive design and efficient construction.

ARCHIER is an architectural practice with studios in Hobart and Melbourne. We work across residential and commercial sectors and have a particular interest in the relationship between architecture and landscape. We are a privately owned company and have four principals. One of our four directors is also Landscape Architect and this gives us a unique skill-set to work seamlessly across the two domains of Architecture and Landscape.

We work across a range of scales; for a range of clients. Our work encompasses residential, commercial and government architecture; public and private landscape projects; as well as the design and manufacture of furniture and lighting products

Our innovative designs are focused on material honesty, thermal performance and constructability, as we strive for affordable and responsive architecture that contributes to the public domain.

We are interested in projects that span architecture, urban design and landscape and embrace the mantra that design is delivery. Our practice utilises BIM extensively to automate and streamline our design work-flow and we are increasingly leveraging BIM to not only aid and support the delivery and construction of our work; we are also using it directly with Off Site Manufacturers to automate the production of timber based floor, wall and roof elements directly from the coordinated design model.

Our directors have over 25 years of combined industry experience and were drawn together to create an inclusive practice that is truly outcome orientated. We have won awards across a range of disciplines connected to the built environment that recognise our design excellence and innovation, along with our commitment to sustainable buildings and the environment.

As a practice, we have worked on large scale commercial projects with a construction value in excess of $100M through Joint Venture arrangements with Hayball Architects and we have lead multidisciplinary teams for complex commercial projects over $5M in value.

We relish the opportunity to work collaboratively with clients and large project teams to incorporate specialist knowledge and expertise into our work. We are data driven and focused on quality project outcomes. We have proven project experience leading complex projects in sensitive environments and have been recognised for our contextual approach to design.

We have also been awarded for our approach to sustainability and always seek not only to optimise the thermal performance of our buildings, but also to consider the life cycle cost of our material choices.