New Houses

Upton House

Project Description:

This project is a new house built in 1997 for the architect's own family home and office. The house is built on a typical, subdivided Epsom site of 457 m2. It includes two living areas, four bedrooms and a large home office with its own separate access. The total floor area is 234 m2.

Exterior walls are finished in Insulclad acrylic plaster to create a stucco look with small areas of cedar weather board trim. Window joinery is standard but thoughtfully detailed aluminium with a sliver anodised finish. The roof is largely flat (behind the plaster parapet) but with barrel-vaulted curves over bedrooms all clad in Nuraply.

Design:

The objective of the design was to create a building with strong geometric form which would advertise the work of the owner's architectural practice whilst providing a home for a family of four.
The floor area is optimised to utilise the maximum permitted 35% coverage of the site.

On the ground floor, the indoor-outdoor relationship is blurred using large areas of floor to ceiling glass to create the illusion of greater interior space. The small patio areas are designed as architectural spaces to be spatial extensions of the interior. Transitions from inside to out are made with shade sails, a glass canopy and external blinds.

Internally, the plan is divided into two by the double height entry and dining room spaces which are crossed at first floor level by a "bridge" between bedroom areas. This device links the interior together in 3 dimensions, again creating a greater sense of space.

The interior is all painted white emphasing plain, unadorned surface with each space flowing into the next in true modernist spirit. All doors and openings extend full height to ceilings to reinforce this spatial flow.

A studio-office is located above the double garage with access from the house and from an outside staircase which leads onto a roof deck.

Building Cost : $340,000 incl. GST