Paul Bird in Media - Home Design & Living Issue 4 Autumn/Winter
Redesign in Yarraville
This Californian bungalow in Yarraville was liveable but now its in perfect shape thanks to skills of jfkdesign and the efforts of Paul Bird Building. The redesign of the home was an exercise in considered thinking and clever space planning from the design stage to completion. 
The result was a total re-build of the existing house, with a contemporary yet complimentary extension out the back. The clients came to jfkdesign via Paul Bird with an overall brief of the house they wanted and the amount of rooms that were required for their family. 
They also wanted something creative and exciting.
Jackson was given a free run and came back to the owners with an exciting house that they were blown away. He and his team organised which rooms they would keep inside, then they took the back off the property and built a fantastic pavilion with raking ceilings and expressive raw materials at the rear. It was essential that the most was made out of the site and all aspects were accounted for such as orientation, privacy and the all important transition between old and new. A key strategy was to maintain the existing housewithout going up, this kept the house at ground level respecting the dominant neighbourhood character. |
Eco House
"In all designs we strongly feel it's important to engage with the streetscape, so an empnasis was placed on designing an extremely contemporary home that didn't look out of place with anything else in the area," says Jackson Fitzroy-Kelly. In the design stages, Jackson already had in mind the various materials he would use to bring this property to life. With such a large addition to the property, jfkdesign thougnt it was important to articulate the difference between the new and old elements of the home. Plantation grown ply cladding was used at the rear of the house to tie in with the existing weatherboards [timber and timber). The roof structure was an inverted truss so by using conventional roof technology in an unconventional fashion there was no massive expense in this area but an amazing space resulted. The polished slab in the kitchen and living areas sit adjacent to massive recycled ironbank timber posts effortlessly lofting the cranked ceiling above. Recycled ironbark floor boards run the length of the hall into the rear addition, tying the retained front element to the rear. Jackson admits that even though this is a true 100 per cent eco house, the team kept this concept in mind through all the decision stages so as to include sustainable design elements wherever possible. Many of the ideas in the property that have come to fruition are extremely environmentally sustainable. |
