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DX Architects Richmond Residence has been published in the The Age newspaper (Domain 22/05/2010) titled 'Flexibility can create space' by Jenny Brown.
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Flexibility can create space
Jenny Brown
May 22, 2010
Daniel Xuereb found extra room where there was none with efficient use of space and fuzzy room boundaries.
In the hyper-density of inner-city Richmond, it is difficult to find a block with enough scope to make a renovation anything much in terms of amenity gain.
With overlooking laws protecting the privacy of neighbours, even an addition that goes up can have its site lines and building envelope so constrained it can become telescopically claustrophobic.
Fortunately for Rebecca and Daniel Xuereb, their double-fronted Victorian weatherboard, though on a narrow block of nine metres, was, at 23 metres, quite long. Better still, it also had a back western boundary facing a laneway, which gave a second orientation option.
Fortunately, too, Daniel is an architect and because the couple spent 10 years living in the house before the arrival of their two children, he had scads of time to consider all options on how to redevelop his own home.
By taking his time, he says he "could process how we really wanted to live and process what was important to us. By not rushing the design we could also develop a real efficiency in the use of the space."
In view of the fact that the Xuerebs now have a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a superbly fitted-out kitchen, a laundry room, storage above their current requirements, an upstairs adults' retreat with walk-though wardrobe and a potential third baby nursery or study room, the phrase "efficient use of space" is a complete understatement.
Even the curving nook under the spotted-gum staircase has become a room where children play or toys are kicked when visitors arrive. Upstairs, a narrow third room presents more storage and is virtually a foyer to even more capacity in the roof cavity.
"We pushed and pulled and manipulated spaces to work pretty hard for us. We considered how all the spaces would interlock and how they could be made flexible to work in multiple ways," Daniel Xuereb says.
The intersection of internal living space is actually fairly complex. In the main open-plan kitchen-dining-living room, for example, there are five different ceiling heights and two different floor heights.
But because all of the elements have real function, the complexity adds interest rather than visual overload. "That's also why we painted it white," the architect says.
"I tried to use the ceiling heights to define and divide the various spaces. The different bulkheads help define the areas. I also think it gives an honesty of form."
After utilising space, Xuereb says his biggest challenge was getting northern light into the house. The solution was a high north-facing mezzanine level balcony with sliding glass door that pulls light down into the sitting room while working for cross-ventilation for the whole house.
More light and air is gained through two one-metre-square light wells set on each side of the house that allow natural illumination of the central bathroom and that will one day be cubes of greenery.
The detailing and decor of a house that so ingeniously expanded from 93 square metres to 167 square metres, without looking over-stuffed or over-complicated, is very crisp and done in variations on a black, white and red colour scheme.
A black, shiny wall block in the kitchen hides cupboards and appliances — except the stainless steel fridge. Cherry-red splashbacks in the bathroom and adjoining laundry warm up the wet rooms.
A beautifully designed "dresser" that divides the living from the dining space is done in a dark Italian timber veneer.
"There was," Xuereb says, "an architectural justification and a practical reason for everything we did. The spaces were all carved out of the building but the borders of the rooms were blurred to make what is really a small house feel much more open and bigger than it really is.
"A lot of my inner-city residential work is like this," he says. "It addresses the question of how you change small inner-city houses and maximise their space so that they work for families who don't want to move out to the suburbs."
"How do you develop efficiency in the use of space?" The answer, as evidenced in his home, an entrant in this year's RAIA Victorian chapter architectural awards, is "that big spaces aren't always necessary but that flexible spaces are".
Copyright © 2010 Fairfax Media
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