Introducing the wonderful new residence, located in South New Whales, Australia by the Fox Johnston architects.
The Balmain House was designed by Fox Johnston architects to provide simple, yet generous spaces for a young family. The only problem was its very own location. Squeezed within the constraints of a smallinner city block, almost literally sandwiched between14 adjacent properties.
As you can imagine simple but gazing at it, the 241-square metre north facing site, which is actually an elevated triangle, required particularly sensitive handling though. The reason? Its height, overshadowing to maintain neighbours’ sunlight, privacy and views.
The material palette was kept quite simple and textural with sustainability and several reducing energy useage key considerations, while a natural ventilation system was provided, using a temperature controlled extractor fan over the central void enabling the heat to be quickly expelled from the house on hot summer days. And by the way, the house is also serviced by a hydronic heating system. This manages to run the hot water through the slab in the new section and into traditional radiators in the renovated existing cottage.
“Our central idea was to wrap the original workers’ cottage with a continuous series of indoor and outdoor spaces, creating a dialogue between exterior and interiors, and letting light back into the deepest part of the house. Our other central concern was to maximize the family’s privacy and sense of space/outlook, without compromising the privacy of the multiple surrounding neighbours. Spatially, we have used every single metre of the block to maximum advantage, setting up a dialogue between the garden space and the interior living areas to create the illusion of a bigger site. Each downstairs living room – interior and exterior – ‘borrows’ space from the other, to maximize volume, light and air”, say about the Balmain House.
