i really love the idea within a house
that there is a sense of belonging
in 2005 we just fell in love with the
land
and the old house was really just a
means to an end it was this idea of
being able to enjoy growing up with some
young lads
on the site we looked at what we could
reuse
and the whole family were really keen to
try and recycle
parts of the house and the sense of
memory so we
we removed as many weatherboards off the
old house as we could
i love natural things the granite the
cedar
the old cedar off the old house the new
cedar
that to me just creates a richness
i think the ideas that sort of evolved
you know as an architect
you're always thinking about different
things and often you're directed by
clients
and then when you're doing your own
thing it becomes
you know we probably did a couple
hundred designs
we started to sort of think about how we
had
evolved as a family within the house
that was here and whether there was
merit
in terms of the story within the
neighborhood of the
black house on the street and then
design
a new house that had the memory of the
old house
so the ideas evolved in the sense that
the form of the old house
the outline and its positioning and
footprint we respected that took away
all the fenestration
and created a connection for all the
spaces to
the northerly aspect
within the formation of the in-situ
concrete the
the size of the boards that were used
for the in-situ are the
same size as the old weatherboards of
the old house
and that experimentation with insitu was
the thinking that we could actually
create something that was meaningful
to the house but also to us so
we've called the house number three in
relation to a street number
there's um the three boys in the family
um
and then there's the central square
which is the heart of the
family which is my wife and so
that and the way that it's set
it was about us as a family but it also
was about the house
so it's sort of a double meaning
it's a bit of a surprise at home when
you first come down the driveway
and the gates open and it reveals this
home that just does not look like
it belongs in renewable and you think
about their
neighbours on all sides but no curtains
it's
uh you know it's that secluded it could
be anywhere in the country
so i suppose more formally when people
arrive this is welcoming
and then it's being drawn into our
i suppose our family area our kitchen
dining area so
we spend a lot of time sitting at this
island bench
it's very much like a bar
we do do a lot of entertaining and we
have family who stay with us
often i love to slow roasts
you know we do do a lot of baking
and you know it was classic last night
there would have been eight people in
the kitchen
at one stage and it's it's not a
traditional
scullery or butler's kitchen um but it's
a space that we can use
have all the appliances out have them
tucked away and you don't see them
the purpose of it for me is the job that
it's doing
i don't necessarily want to see what the
object is
often people are really interested in
the appliances that
we've used and what we use on projects
and
the best testimony is that we have used
them
and then explaining to them this is how
they look and feel as well so to have
people here to be able to enjoy it
that's that's pretty special
[Music]
the install of the drawers in particular
are beautifully seamless
reusing the weatherboards from the
existing home that was on the site and
then repurposing them
to for cabinetry fronts they look
stunning on the front of the disk drawer
paul's opted for a very dark kind of
moody
color palette on this level with all the
walls being black and a lot of the
kitchen cabinetry
being black so the black ovens were
obvious choice
to work with this color scheme
by working with architects on their own
homes
and you see how much detail they put
into it
when they select the full suite of our
appliances it's very
it's a proud moment for us to see what
they do with them but then also
know that them and their families are
putting them through their paces day in
day out
my wife was keen to have a skylight
above our bed to see
the stars and just have that sort of
idea of camping we repeated that
on the over the entry but it created
this really nice sculptural element so
that when you enter
the property you and you look over but
the roof actually presents itself
it's sort of the surprise and within
that
you know we can butt the glass lift the
roof
and just have this really interesting
moment
the way that the house on the outside
has been
articulated is that the northern
elevation has a connection to the site
into the sun
the eastern elevation has this
connection to morning sun
then the composition of the eastern
elevation has
this idea of modulation
in terms of you know the design thinking
as an architect we explored things that
we hadn't necessarily done before
the idea was for the house to work for
us as a family in relation to its
adaptability
so that the house was always used
you