Machell Way Residence
Greenvale | Victoria
2024
This single dwelling family home presents a simple modern form which offers space for a growing family to leverage a small suburban site. The design remains humble in both its efficiency of planning and street presence yet shows careful consideration internally for every little detail.
The overarching concept of the project was to maximise the available space through efficiency of design to allow the family to thrive. Materiality incorporated throughout the design remains consistent between internal and external spaces in a strategic move to strengthen indoor and outdoor connections. This, combined with full height glazing, allows the home to expand into the site, to further maximise the space and provide a design that breathes.
Raw polished concrete grounds the home to the land, offering a solid base for life to flourish and a strength to the foundations of what it means to have a family home. Continuous inside and out, the concrete provides a stability both physically and symbolically for the modern Australian family with the added benefits of thermal massing. Natural timber warms the design and connects the home to the natural environment in a densely populated suburb. Porous, white-washed brickwork insert privacy and durability while the vertical metal cladding continues the clean lines of an understated façade, with minimal maintenance required.
Inside, an open feature stair acts as a focal point of the home, establishing an openness to increase the spatial volumes and connectivity between levels whilst separating quiet and activity zones.
Situated on a small site, the home retains a modest footprint that aims to leverage the benefits of great architecture and subtly connecting to the wider societal context. Raw and natural materials metaphorically represent the evolutionary family-raising stage of life, as people change and respond to great challenges.
In a world facing the full force of a climate crises and reaching towards over-population, the design reflects upon what is required of a typical Australian family home and rejects popular culture on what society and the media have people convinced is required in a new home.
Builder: Ben Aquaro
Photography: Tom Blachford
