An Architect Couple’s Experimental Home Is an Ode to Recycled Materials
Over 15 years, the cofounders of Splinter Society give a tiny worker’s cottage in Melbourne a gleaming goth makeover.
Over 15 years, the cofounders of Splinter Society give a tiny worker’s cottage in Melbourne a gleaming goth makeover.
In 2005, recently graduated architects Asha Nicholas and Chris Stanley bought a tiny worker’s cottage in the Melbourne suburb of East Brunswick—and they spent the next 15 years experimenting and evolving the space into a three-bedroom home as they started a family. At the heart of the transformation is a rich palette of recycled materials and an unusual floor plan with an abundance of nooks and angles that introduce light while maintaining privacy.
"We changed so much from when we started at the age of 25 to when we finished at the age of 40," says Chris. "By being hands on and playing around with ideas, we came up with a lot of stuff that we wouldn’t have if we were sitting at the drawing board and pushing to get things done quickly. And, as young architects, getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn."
To accommodate this incremental process, the couple developed a framework to inform the design that could be adjusted as they discovered new techniques and materials they wanted to incorporate. They liked the historical qualities of the early 20th-century worker’s cottage, and they wanted to retain its street presence, gabled form, and scale—while intervening to open it up and release it from its long, narrow plan.
See the full story on Dwell.com: An Architect Couple’s Experimental Home Is an Ode to Recycled Materials
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