I’m interested in retaining character, retaining patina, showcasing a site memory or a weathered material. Recently I enjoyed the luxury of designing for my folks.
The intention with this project was to showcase custodianship of history, heritage and materiality, while preparing my folks for retirement. Wandoo Design and Construction delivered the build to a fixed price contract sum, and the house consists of a front cottage entirely retained and restored, with a rear addition, separated by a courtyard. The little rear extension for my folks is in readiness for their retirement. The rear is good as a one person house with kitchen, and the front is good for short stay. While my folks are mobile, active and working, the front is earning its keep. When they are older, a carer may stay in the front part. It has been designed for elderly or non-ambulant access, including a comfortable wheel-in shower.
Dad liked the look of the run-down timber cottage on a tiny block near the beach and cafes in urbane South Fremantle, Western Australia, exemplified worst house on the best street. Read my tips about that by clicking here.
Mum’s needs, I have found, are best met by taking the well-educated guesses a daughter can take. All in all, being an enthusiastic, emotional and ebullient sort I worked with her to narrow every key intention down to a word - vast. As in outlook.
She was surprised when I encouraged them to buy the run-down cottage, retain the original rambling character, demolish the dilapidated rear half under a slumped skillion roof, and build a fresh new rear part with a lot of recycled materials and memory of what had been before. Confident that I could meet her functional and comfort essentials by way of brief (wish list) and material selection; location close to the beach with vast sky and horizon really became a key motivating aspect of the design process which helped locate windows, orient walls and ceilings and inform planning methodology.
Working for my own folks has shown me the importance of knowing your client deeply.
I am fascinated by recordings on the land, influenced by working on an early mentor’s PhD into that subject matter - Kate Hislop has explored Perth’s early history of mark making in Perth in environment and built form.
The original and only survey available was a hand sketch on linen referencing markers no longer standing, a long time ago in Fremantle’s settlement history. Our surveyor enjoyed the task of taking a virgin site and being the man to convert it into digital format. It happened to be the first site on the street to require surveying beyond the original sketch – and yet, with all that extant housing stock, the streetscape was not heritage listed at the time of the project.
The old dunny well and truly crossed a boundary. Literally – it protruded more than two feet into the neighbour’s yard. This is common in Fremantle with the old outhouse. Quaint, rustic and iconic, we took photos. I recorded its location and requested that we keep it on site as a folly. Dad, wanting his money’s worth and pragmatic at the same time, wondered why on earth I wanted to keep it. He could see the romance but not the point of letting romance get in the way of maximising internal space.
We didn’t argue, he is a pacifist even when I am evangelical. We just tossed ideas around for a while. The block is quite small and I conceded the demolition of the dunny in return for a fixed record of its location on site by way of painstakingly cleaning the bricks and reinstating them in the exact same spot. The outside edge of the original south dunny wall is now the outside edge of the new south living room wall. The wall is reverse brick veneer, meaning it is clad on the outside (in our case with weatherboards, also recycled from similarly old property in the same suburb) and on the inside is the leaf of brickwork; between the two materials is an air gap providing a good thermal barrier. I looked forward to working with the bricklayer to satisfy my eye with regard to mortar finish and colour – and was keen to lay the bricks such that they recorded the height and pattern of the original decorative holes in the arch - but no, nothing fancy was executed, just a plain and truly recycled brick wall now stands there. The bricks have now been on site for at least one hundred years and will last at least another half century after the investment gone into the build.
The project is full of reuse and material recycling. The original zincalume from the old roof was removed and used to clad a long west-facing side wall. It is the side entry wall and bridges the still-standing original cottage front wall with the brand new rear part of the house. I like the way it does that – a continuous element, stripy, familiar, down-to-earth and Australian. Walking up that side entry feels comfortable and not showy, yet it is clean and interesting and decidedly smart against the brand new Western Red Cedar windows with reclaimed remilled jarrah architraves.
The timber floor which was pulled up from the dilapidated half was gently separated and the 5 and a quarter inch tongue & groove jarrah floorboards were reused in a part of the old house which needed a new floor. The Baltic pine used in the cheaper old workers’ cottage floors came from ballast in the cargo ships which came to Fremantle harbour. Imperfect, cheaper and softer, the patchy baltic pine boards, testament to the story, remain. (edit - they were infact removed during construction, it is now entirely reclaimed jarrah).
The very old ceiling rose to the loungeroom in the front (retained) part of the house was dropped and kept in a corner in clamps. After a new ceiling went in the rose was reinstated and restored, the junction between new and old plaster a fine finisher's job. Karl Harris was impressive standing on stilts and willing to take dust in his eyebrows and nostrils. He was trained young in New Zealand just as glass plaster was being phased out and has a set of clever tricks of the trade stored in his repertoire which younger, Aussie plasterers have not. He beautifully blended old with new, professionally and quickly.
A blue canoe has hung from the verandah rafters throughout the works since before the project started.