Bellows House is in the suburb called Flinders. It's about one
and a half hour drive from Melbourne. It's a holiday house for the family.
From the get-go we have this idea that this house should be a permanent structure. We want it to
be permanent because there is something noble about creating things that last.
The thinking behind when we start designing these places
the floor plan is orientated so that it provides some sort of privacy from the street itself.
As a result we carve out some internal courtyards inside these two walls.
We have done quite a long facade we've really articulated block work,
we need to provide that privacy to the client. When the whole thing is curtained down or locked
up we call it a defence mechanism that provides the privacy to the client. This creates a
dialogue creates interest so that people can actually engage and talk about this house.
The name is actually referring to the shape of the pyramid inside the house which is similar
to bellows of a camera lens. The concrete pyramid is a craft in itself, all the credit
has to go to the builder Gareth. Gareth laser cut everything to millimetre perfection. I remember
when the day we stripped the formwork and that moment of joy when you actually see the result.
Once an idea has germinated I have a tendency to be quite obsessive. That pattern has replicated in
kitchen benchtop as well as external window shutters
to joinery handles, everything becomes a subsequence of the initial decision.
I actually want to draw out the process of entering into a house where in traditional
sense you open the front door and that's where you start your experience.
In this case you actually has to travel through a path that designed intentionally and force you
to experience the material and also the shape of the building before you even touch the front door.
That is something that was done intentionally and designed to make you to explore the entire house
slowly and appreciate what we have done.
We have the pleasure of working with the landscape architect in this project which is Jim Fogerty.
Jim has a house in Flinders so he actually understand
the microclimate of Flinders quite well.
We wanted the entire garden to be native and Jim is great in creating
layers within this landscape. The whole idea is to bring the inside out. The brick floor
from within the house has extended externally and because of that when you open up the bifold
doors to the living area the entire inside and outside boundary become quite blurry.
We care a lot about how lights come inside building.
Quite often the material choice is an extension of that. In this case concrete is used internally
to condition the light that will come inside the house. We have used a white concrete block
internally as well as externally because of that shadow cast onto the white block become
quite significant and you can actually look at it as being part of the future of the house.
When you make the palette a little bit more constrained you tend to explore the
material even more. We have put in quite a robust and hard-wearing base structure
and to balance that we have used timber to soften the entire material pallet. It's actually quite
liberating because you have to use your creativity to find other ways to make it even more complex.
I think because how the house is being constructed in terms of the material
you can actually be quite insulated internally where you don't have to hear
the sound of the rain when it hit really hard when it's pouring.
But as soon as you open the door that connection to the outside is apparent.
You feel quite protected internally but yet you can experience this external element.
Shadow has a power to the feeling of a space. Always believe that light and shadow is part
of architecture, if you design it from the get-go you can control that mode that you
want to portray internally. The shadow creates an environment where one can take respite in.
The opposite of that is when there's light coming in you
can actually appreciate the light being something that brightens your face up.
We like the use of either a highlight window or skylights especially when we have a deep
floor plate, it's always good to use the light to light at the centre of a house.
The favourite part of the house is actually the drying rack for the wetsuit.
The reason I said that is because it actually epitomised an idea of a holiday house.
It's where activities ended up at the end of the day. The drying rack is always there,
wet suit and water always there and it's just remind you what this house is about.
One thing that I am most happy to see is to see how the building is aged.
Externally we have used this white concrete blob
however in my mind from the day when we begin to design I actually want to see age. Building will
have dust over them, rain will create stain, but I think it's part of the natural beauty.
I would like to think that Bellows House
has created this dialogue about architecture or beach vernacular in a sense that it's not about
one single hero image. It's about an experience as opposed to one single moment.
In Bellows House you don't get to describe the building in one go,
you actually have to walk through the entry sequence to understand the house properly.
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