Designing Inside the Box

What happens when the house you first fell in love with doesn’t exist anymore? You build something you love even more.

BEN O’BRYAN AND MICHAEL ROMEI met and fell in love with each other in 2009. In 2011 they fell in love with Canberra after relocating from Sydney.

Finding a beautifully-kept 1951 duplex in Yarralumla in 2013, they fell in love with both house and suburb. While the house had been on the market for some time, it was “the one”.

But in 2016, like so many Canberrans caught up in the Mr Fluffy asbestos crisis, Ben and Michael were forced to watch their two-storey, sash-windowed and parquetry-floored home demolished.

Of course, our story doesn’t end on that sad note.

Ben and Michael bought back their block, hired architect Paul Tilse and interior designer Vanessa Hawes, and set about building a new home, “Box House”—which they now love more than they thought possible.

The fact that Box House received the 2018 ACT Institute of Architects Award for Residential Architecture—Houses (New) this year has further helped them move on from the trauma they experienced after losing their original dwelling.

Unlike most couples who embark on building their dream home from the ground up, Ben and Michael were thrown into the process without much consideration. They simply had no idea their duplex life would be so short-lived.

“We’d only just settled into the house for a year when we were received our letter about Mr Fluffy so it was a big shock. Having to start again and build a new house from scratch was the furthest thing on our minds. So it was all very sudden and we hadn't really thought about what we necessarily would like in a new home.

“We really didn’t have a clear idea of anything— other than wanting to keep some sense of the heritage of the area, keep a link to what we loved about the duplex, and wanting the new home to connect with the street,” says Ben.

Space was extremely tight, as was their budget.

Enter experienced Canberra architect Paul whose portfolio appealed to the couple’s modern aesthetic, and whose skill at referencing historic features into new builds spoke immediately to them. Builders Sutton & Horsley completed the task on time and on budget, and now the happy couple are pinching themselves every day after work as they pull into their underground carpark and make their way up a light-filled staircase.

“So we have a modern interpretation of the duplex. It is a very solid form, and our red recycled bricks will be familiar to any Canberran,” says Michael.

But once you step through across the threshold of the sunlit and airy space, it is clear that “Toto, we are not in a duplex anymore.”

While duplexes have been loved by locals for generations for being compact and solid, they are often far from open plan, with walls, corridors and small rooms blocking considerable light.

In the large open plan living areas of this home, there are no walls—save for a slatted wood entry screen you can see right through as you walk in the front door. Once you are in the living area, you can see almost uninterrupted views around the entire perimeter of the home.

Most striking are the window kitchen splashbacks—allowing pedestrians to walk by, gaze in and see what the boys are whipping up for dinner.

Rather than feel perturbed by such glances, Ben and Michael love the connection to the neighbourhood. Unobtrusive blinds can be employed in any event.

They also love the connection to the backyard, which includes a large deck with an automated awning ready to glide silently across should the sun become too blinding. Bricked-in garden beds in a terrace formation add interest and accessibility.

According to Paul, requests from clients to design duplexes have increased over the past few years.

“But duplexes pose different design problems to houses; block orientation, shape and slope are more critical because of the need to locate two of everything; garages, driveways and outdoor entertaining areas and maintain privacy between each.”

He admits that when he first visited the Box House site—on the corner of the quiet Yarralumla cul de sac—he found it quite a challenge.

“The 450m2 site, already unit-titled from its close neighbour, meant a maximum new house area of 140m2, which is tight for a modern three-bedroom, three-bathroom house. A large protected Chinese elm tree, the necessity for basement parking and a site visible to the public on all sides all added to the challenge,” he said.

“Small corner blocks require you to consider all sides of the house from an aesthetic and privacy perspective as everything is visible.”

But it also presents an opportunity to create a house that can be appreciated as a whole and not just as a front façade—very much the case with this dwelling, which presents new points of interest and perspective changes as you amble along and around the footpath.

The initial brief was to design a modern house that incorporated recycled red brick as a response to the 1950s architecture of the street, and the nearby Canberra Brickworks. In addition to three bedrooms and three bathrooms, the couple wanted to maximise winter sun into the house, embrace the outside landscape, and capture distant views to Parliament House and Telstra Tower.

Paul’s response was to design the home over three levels including a basement—all of which sometimes threatened the modest budget and provided space planning challenges, but which was ultimately delivered.

Paul’s partner Vanessa, meanwhile, made sure the interiors were compatible with the exteriors by bringing some of the external colour palette, patterning and timber elements through to living spaces.

Vanessa’s favourite space is the main living and kitchen area and the way it connects to the outdoor terrace behind it and to the street in front of it.

“We were really keen to make this a masculine, contemporary and comfortable space. In a house with only one living area, this was an incredible challenge.

“The tongue-and-groove timber flooring really grounded the space and made it very welcoming, we kept up timber veneer elements throughout and the volcano-flamed granite on the kitchen benchtops finished off the earthy palette that naturally took shape,” she said.

While Ben and Michael were open to this design ingenuity, they did take a little convincing on the timber flooring over polished concrete. But it adds to the warmth, textural overlay and overall feeling of spaciousness once you walk through the door.

The window splashbacks contribute to to the illusion of size while creating a connectivity with the streetscape and allowing for built-in joinery over the top, ensuring no space was wasted for storage.

The charcoal painted V-Joint element that hides the pantry and fridge was a nod to the steel finish on the external façade—and the most earthy and dramatic element of the kitchen, the statement granite, was hunted down by Ben and Michael who were set on having it as a commemoration of their duplex in which they had also enjoyed granite benchtops.

Ben and Michael love nothing more than coming home, taking off their shoes and basking in the warmth of the sun that floods their living spaces. Michael admits that while he loved his old home, he had never endured a Canberra winter in comfort. Now they rarely need to turn on the heating.

While Ben misses his beloved sash windows, he barely remembers them when his eye is taken through the sliding doors to the back deck or through the clever waist-level window splashbacks.

And if you peek in from the street to see the couple pottering around the kitchen or entertaining friends, you will see clearly that they are smiling. •

WORDS Emma Macdonald

PHOTOGRAPHY Stefan Postles + Tim Bean