I'm Feras Raffoul from FGR Architects here today talking about Salmon Residece.
So, we're in this in the North-Western side of Melbourne CBD.
Quite a leafy green area out here in quite large allotments. We're surrounded by some beautiful
greenery and vegetation so there's a lot of borrowed landscape through here.
There was an existing traditional home on this property that was demolished and we conceived
the design for the double-storey residents that can cater for their growing family.
The front courtyard's a very important part this whole home so it's fairly brutal,
there's a volume that sits above and then there's the horizontal precast wall. Before you get to the
entry door you're then surprised by this beautiful courtyard sort of the pond with a tree that sits
right in the middle of it, then the door opens up and and then the 'wow' hits you from there.
As we enter through we've doubled the volume as you come in. We've put a big sheet of glass above
the entry door and that allows some of the morning sun to make its way straight through
down the corridor. The site dropped about three metres from front to back so we had to deal
with that terrain change and we've segmentally done that through so we've got the front yard,
the front part of the home, the connecting part, the living and then the backyard and
the whole idea was as a young family kids could be there and the parents could be entertaining,
but the the sound transfer is not sort of going straight through the home.
The other importance was ensuring that we get a maximum height in that living space that we're in,
so we were able to achieve a 3.6 metre ceiling height through this back area
and that's imperative to the sense of size and space within this room.
Concrete's sort of the the backbone of maybe the brutal settlements here. The kitchen bench
has gone to concrete, the floor is a terrazzo concrete finish, external paving is concrete, the
home is in a concrete finish. What this does, this provides a beautiful base for vegetation to grow
on it, for furniture, artwork; just the expression of many other things that they can come around it.
We've been able to use the timber to just soften certain
areas up so we've used that on the staircases and I find that that is just a nice
run from concrete to timber to concrete. The importance of concrete
and glazing here is vital and the detailing of that was sort of very important to get right.
The most dynamic part of glazing in this home is really in the back volume in how
we bring in the morning sun, how we bring in sort of the greenery through the glass,
and how do we bring in the afternoon northern sun. We've got a four panel
opening which is almost eight meters wide that is bringing inside and outside together.
We really rely on contractors
like Thermeco to be able to execute the vision that we have. At no point were they against
the large expanse of glass, the stackable doors and back then not many people were doing this.
FGR approached us at the design stage of this project and wanted to really push the limit and
see what we could achieve with our product. We believe that the windows system shouldn't really
be a limitation on the design intent. The intent was to make the windows in some ways disappear,
there should be seamless and incorporated into the home and feel like part of the home.
The windows and doors need to be functional they need to perform
so it's important to consider all of that when designing a home and with the Thermeco
product and the thermally broken range that we have it enables the brief to be met from
a from an energy efficient point of view and from also an aesthetic point of view.
The play of the natural sunlight going through the home during the day can immensely change the
feel of this space and then it can tick over into the evening where this beautiful artificial light
comes in and then there's this nice soft warmth tone that runs through the whole space.
The pavilion is the focal point of the home and so it's such an important space to make sure that the
beautiful landscaping and the pool and the fire pit all sort of come into the home when you've got
beautiful frames and glass. The way this project is finished is truly world class. It's nice to
work with people that have complete faith in the Thermeco team and with FGR and the client
in this case really proud to they trusted us and had faith and belief in our system and our team.
Architecture can be beautiful, visual.
You can drive past and say geez that looks like a beautiful product but my check and balance
is really just coming back and just seeing the family grow through this space and just really
enjoy it through the different seasons of the year to me is my most rewarding part.