Connected House by Albert Mo Architects balances the restoration of architectural heritage with a new approach to outdoor connections and a growing floor plan to accommodate teenage children. It’s a home that’s as much about the garden as it is the building.
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The success of this project comes from architect Albert Mo’s intimate site knowledge. Some 15 years ago he and his family moved into what was originally a 1950s mid-century home, designed by Peter McIntyre. He came to know, innately, where the sun crept through in the mornings, which trees were deciduous in winter, who liked to read by the fire, and where the schoolbags were left, when the kids came home. The floor plan is a direct response to the needs of his family life, now and into the future.
A decade of rumination on design philosophies culminated in a design extension that is as much about the garden as it is the building. Original paint colours and brick finishes were restored, while the new extension sits discreetly hidden from the street view. To minimise earthworks, the extension strictly follows the structural set out of the existing home. And the floor plan offers a new program for everyday living, within the framework of the home’s modest, post war bones.
The site, which is incredibly steep, needed significant terracing to create a new relationships between the home and the backyard. The drawbridge – a labour of love undertaken by Albert, an aerospace engineer, a metal fabricator, and a trusting builder – is the centrepiece of the living space, opening the indoors outward with a clever drawbridge mechanism.
Materials are low maintenance and hard wearing with a priority for local manufacturers and suppliers. And Albert has chosen to work with incredibly durable, aesthetically superior porcelain panels, and Japanese handcrafted Inax Sugie Series tiles in the bathrooms.
Photography Derek Swalwell, courtesy of Albert Mo Architects.