It's a wrap: this unorthodox house in a Melbourne suburb is a bold response to the area's Mediterranean climate.Young Australian architects It may never be fully completed or, depending on its its nature, it may be that it can never be completed. However, new and revised entries in the list are always welcome. traditionally draw first blood with private houses, often remarkably good ones such as this Modernist house by award-winning BKK BKK Bangkok BKK Betriebskrankenkasse BKK Bangkok, Thailand - Bangkok International Airport (Airport Code) BKK Big Knobi Klub (a Shadowrun Website) BKK Backus Kehoe Kydland Architects for a semi-retired couple in posh Melbourne suburb, Toorak. Expensive the area may be, but this is tall poppies home territory and only a few brave people buck the prevailing grim visual suburban tradition of red tile roofs, brick-veneer cladding The plastic or glass sheath that is fused to and surrounds the core of an optical fiber. The cladding's mirror-like coating keeps the light waves reflected inside the core. The cladding is covered with a protective outer jacket. See fiber optics glossary. , and disregard for orientation in this Mediterranean-style climate. The Wrap House is made from rendered block work on a steel portal frame Portal frame construction is a method of building and designing simple structures, primarily using steel or steel-reinforced precast concrete although they can also be constructed using laminated timber such as glulam. and, unconventionally but correctly, it faces sideways towards the north where the sun can be easily controlled. At first floor, the elevation reads as a series of solid blocks separated by glazing Glazing The application of finely ground glass, or glass-forming materials, or a mixture of both, to a ceramic body and heating (firing) to a temperature where the material or materials melt, forming a coating of glass on the surface of the ware. , although the expression does not particularly relate to the arrangement of rooms inside. There has also to be a worry about the big picture windows of the ground floor library and first floor master bedroom which face the street and the fierce afternoon western sun. I suspect they are there for formal reasons to do with the wrap. In fact they have integral sun blinds which will probably mostly be closed in the name of privacy. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The architects make much of the notion of wrap, an Eisenmanesque proposition about how architecture might well come about from directions other than the customary convenience, orientation, structure and the like. This has its parallels in current arts criticism in which truths are thought to be revealed by analysing parallel human activities. Eisenman produced some sensational designs which didn't always make a lot of sense if you want to live in them. Here in Melbourne, it is suggested by BKK that the design comes from a sequence of folds in a carefully cut flat sheet. But, as with cardboard packaging design in which very complicated three-dimensional supports for securely transporting household gadgets are ingeniously cut and folded from flat card, you have to start out with a pretty precise idea about the ultimate form. So too here the plan is too rational in terms of the relationships between rooms and spaces, and the wrap is a largely post hoc post hoc adv. & adj. In or of the form of an argument in which one event is asserted to be the cause of a later event simply by virtue of having happened earlier: thing. It hardly matters, for here is a series of dramatic domestic spaces light-years beyond the imagination of the builders of the surrounding conventional brick-tile mansion-ettes. The clients say, 'The architects have given us everything we wanted.' Given the impending im·pend intr.v. im·pend·ed, im·pend·ing, im·pends 1. To be about to occur: Her retirement is impending. 2. antiquity of the clients, anyone might be concerned about the steep approach from street up to the house's ground floor level. But it was the clients who bought the steeply sloping site, not the architects. In any case, the couple apparently found a disassembled stair stair n. 1. A series or flight of steps; a staircase. Often used in the plural. 2. One of a flight of steps. [Middle English, from Old English lift in the garage of a big beach house they had bought a little earlier. The nicely ironic and yet prosaic finishing touch is the barbecue. Set on the north boundary on a decking platform with a cantilevered shelter over it, it is a single cubic mass, a pristine pris·tine adj. 1. a. Remaining in a pure state; uncorrupted by civilization. b. Remaining free from dirt or decay; clean: pristine mountain snow. 2. altar to the outdoor life under a hardwood hardwood: see wood. hardwood Timber obtained from broad-leaved, flower-bearing trees. Hardwood trees are deciduous trees, except in the warmest regions. baldacchino. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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