Why This Suburban Melbourne Home Doesn’t Have Air-Conditioning

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Project Details:

Location: Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia

Footprint: 3,153 square feet

Architect: Studio Bright / @studio__bright

Structural and Civil Engineer: Meyer Consulting

Landscape Design: Sarah Hicks

Photographer: Rory Gardiner / @arorygardiner

From the Architect: “Addressing a leafy Melbourne suburban street with a thick domestic hedge, yet connecting to native bushland from the creek below, the site offered the opportunity to consider the intersection of wilderness within the strict geometry and character of a typical suburban block. Adding to the complexity of the context, sprawl has resulted in traditional suburban developments uncomfortably adjacent to the Australian bushland. We saw this house as an opportunity to reimagine this juncture through humble, replicable design strategies focused on landscape.

“A hedge at the home’s entry serves as the primary elevation, liberating the house from its usual responsibility of a formal facade, allowing spatial and volumetric planning to prioritize landscape relationships. We borrowed from the success of this hedge ‘wall’ to insert layers arraying in plan, delineating space and mediating privacy through two built mechanisms—garden wall and arbor. Material selections for both were made to focus on robustness, economy, and to minimize maintenance.

“Much like the hedge, the garden walls define the transition and landscape experience as one traverses across and down the site. The first garden threshold is contemplative and buffered, as one crosses over from the street into the property bounds. The first built layer, composed of solid-face block work, defines the territory of the two gardens to the east and west of the dwelling. They mediate the site’s topography, establishing a new level that defines the ‘in-between’ spirit of the house—below street and above the treetops—and create a direct gateway into living spaces. A delicate screen forms an arbor that encircles the building. As vines entwine the structure, this final layer shields the house from harsh winds and is an embedded sun-shading strategy, providing a delicate contrast to the solid block work. In effect, the building becomes a landscape condition.

“To prioritize landscape programs, maximize northern light and shield against the neighboring properties, the main volume was positioned to run east-west along the site’s southern edge. A central perpendicular element holds living spaces to spill into gardens on either side. These passive design strategies paired with ceiling fans also serve to negate the requirement for mechanical conditioning. Bedrooms are efficiently planned with large sliding doors to the children’s rooms opening onto a shared corridor and study space, drawing the occupants out from behind closed doors.

“In collaboration with the landscape architect, Sarah Hicks, planting selections were made to acknowledge and disperse the suburban and wilderness characteristics. Wilderness was implanted to the front, welcoming visitors with a soft and loose native garden. Inversely, a small homage to the traditional lawn is given to the western edge, providing a restrained viewing platform beyond, which the site drops steeply. Here, instead of a cantilever disconnecting from the ground plane, the landscape clad building drapes to meet the ground, gesturing toward the parklands with deference and respect.”