Melbourne, Victoria
Robert Simeoni Architects were appointed to design the residence of the well-known design writer Stephen Craft and transform a 1930’s compact duplex into a contemporary cozy residence with the use of light and various Art Deco elements.
The project was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Powell Street House occupies a compact site in the side streets of South Yarra, in a pocket characterized by a visually diverse streetscape. The existing 1930’s brick duplex in a restrained Art Deco style comprised a ground floor and first-floor apartment, each sharing the same floor plan, and each with its own external access.
Our clients, architecture and design writer and his partner (with an eclectic collection of artworks and furniture), had been living in the property for a number of years and wished to unite and augment the two dwellings to form a cohesive single residence with a private aspect.
The existing house had a quiet interior and muted light, and the design (particularly through the use of an obscure fluted glass) was developed in response to this, with deliberate quietness, and the creation of long diagonal views through the existing shallow floor plan.
The design approach was to retain and respect the existing fabric wherever possible, with the new elements treated as interventions that were clearly distinguishable from the original fabric, whilst being respectful to it.
Minimizing structural alterations to the original fabric was also a means of achieving a cost-effective outcome. Dining, kitchen, and laundry facilities were located in the new addition to the rear of the site, with a polished concrete floor.
The kitchen and dining area enjoy a northern aspect to the property’s rear courtyard, via a steel-framed window wall, which describes a serrated profile in the plan, and delivers an intriguing (and deliberately internalized) quality of light to the newly created space. This ground floor addition forms a double-height volume, which incorporates a carefully located high-level window, and was conceived as a quiet space, with ambiguous connections between the existing and the new, the outside and the inside.
A compact central staircase, in dark stained timber and raw steel, connects the two previously separated levels of the building and was located within the former bathroom space to each level, to minimize the need for internal alterations.
Bathrooms were designed with a selection of materials evocative of the 1930’s architecture of the original house, including basins tiled in-situ and the use of traditional shower curtains, selected for their modest yet sensuous qualities. The addition and the new architectural elements generally read as insertions within the existing fabric, and connect enigmatically with the materiality of the original. Where openings have been formed or modified, such alterations have been executed in a way that leaves clear traces of the original.
Light fittings and furnishings, including a number of bespoke items created for the project, were selected to inject further elements, which were clearly new, but at ease with the original fabric of the building.
Views were limited and curated through the new steel windows utilizing a combination of clear and opaque glazing, using narrow reeded patterned glass. Internal colors were selected to connect the spaces and respond to the varying volumes and light conditions throughout the house.
Project: Powell Street House
Architects: Robert Simeoni Architects
Client: Stephen/Naomi Crafti
Contractor: TheZimmermanOz
Photographers: Derek Swalwell