Residential Architecture
Yard House / NTF Architecture
Yard House / NTF Architecture
Text description provided by the architects. By creating an anchored place for life and daily rituals to unfold, Emplacement is designed to accommodate change, remain relevant and stand the test of time through attention to detail and craftsmanship. Replacing an existing 1970s home that was left to the elements, the proposal is proportioned from the outside and feels generous on the inside. The planning allows for efficient planning of the five bedrooms, multi-car garage and open living spaces, while also ensuring that residents never feel isolated.
Enviably located opposite Como Park at the rear, the emphasis is on the natural feeling of remoteness and removal, which was celebrated in the design. One of the fundamentals of shelter is the feeling of protection and enclosure, and the materiality and direction of the outward view ensures that privacy is never questioned. As a single storey house from the street, the additional levels open up to the rear and to the abundant surrounding greenery. Although elevated, the shape feels hidden from the park, and by maintaining its presence in the streetscape, it tries to blend inconspicuously with the existing vernacular.
Focusing on the eastern views, the house almost turns its back on the nearby highway, with integrated acoustic reduction. The ability to open up the house and optimize solar gain, ventilation and natural light was imperative to the short and focused way the house works and its orientation. The landscape plays an integral role as an extension of everyday life, with its own special outdoor rooms. The building not only had to feel like an oasis in itself, a resting place from the hustle and bustle of life, but also had to breathe and optimize its positioning.
In the South Yarra context, the existing medium-to-low-density mass was an important consideration, in contributing to an architectural offering that would endure alongside the many other iterations added over the years. While also meeting a changing brief as the family grew throughout the project timeline, the trusting relationship with the builder and engineer ensured the optimized use of cast-in-place concrete as both cost-effective and structurally experimental. Reducing the need to replace any of the elements over such a long period of time makes the building itself sustainable, in addition to integrated systems that reduce emissions, reliance on external energy, natural climate control and control of access to light.
Lying horizontally and low over the entire terrain, the shape takes on a reclining format, weighted in place. The formal arrangement is a result of prioritizing views, while the three levels are in the sloping location at the rear. Encased in concrete and glass, the home’s durability and longevity are articulated both outside and inside. As the ideal expression of stability, the robust casing will patina and age gracefully, capturing the traces of time while also being the robust blanket for family life. In the depth of the texture there is a softness and subtlety. Through its own quiet confidence, Emplacement is intentionally hardy and timeless, willing and able to evolve alongside its patrons.
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