The Design-Led Residences That Won Home of the Year Awards
Modern, interesting and design-led homes won at the inaugural Inside Out Brickworks Home of the Year Awards this week
Vanessa Walker
24 October 2019
Houzz Australia & New Zealand Editor-in-Chief
From curved walls to punctuated brick facades and stunning wall treatments, the homes that won at the inaugural Home of the Year awards serve up plenty of inspiration for those planning new abodes.
The Inside Out Brickworks Home of the Year Award 2019: Kennedy Nolan, Caroline House project
An extension to an Edwardian home in Melbourne, Victoria, with dramatic contrasting elements.
Find an architect near you on Houzz for a custom-designed home
An extension to an Edwardian home in Melbourne, Victoria, with dramatic contrasting elements.
Find an architect near you on Houzz for a custom-designed home
Entrant’s comments
This project is an alteration and addition to a weatherboard Edwardian house in inner Melbourne. The rear of the house faces south, where there is a generous garden.
This project is an alteration and addition to a weatherboard Edwardian house in inner Melbourne. The rear of the house faces south, where there is a generous garden.
We restored and reimagined the existing house and added a pavilion that is separated from the original building by an internal courtyard containing a swimming pool.
The design approach of the Caroline House is best characterised by an eccentric formal quality, which accommodates the complex program of a family home efficiently and comfortably.
Functional aspects are not compromised by the playful masonry forms. The courtyard is able to fulfil the conventional requirements of passive solar design: cross ventilation, north orientation to rear rooms and multiple garden aspects.
The inclusion of a swimming pool in the courtyard augments its function – having a decorative
presence all year round, but also providing evaporative cooling effects in summer.
The inclusion of a swimming pool in the courtyard augments its function – having a decorative
presence all year round, but also providing evaporative cooling effects in summer.
The principal curved wall allows for a layered and nuanced interior, and a dramatic and compelling exterior space. The first floor is monolithically clad in charred timber as a counterpoint to the abstracted planes of white brickwork, and includes a balcony using the principles of the jali, a sequestered zone with veiled views.
A meticulous and complete approach to the interior allies old rooms to the new and results in a narrative experience, which provides moments of delight and discovery within a singular aesthetic.
Winners of the 2019 Australian Interior Design Awards
A meticulous and complete approach to the interior allies old rooms to the new and results in a narrative experience, which provides moments of delight and discovery within a singular aesthetic.
Winners of the 2019 Australian Interior Design Awards
Best New Home Build award and Best Use of Materials, Brick: Renato D’Ettorre Architects, Gordons Bay House
A bold and inventive use of the material throughout a seaside site.
A bold and inventive use of the material throughout a seaside site.
Entrant’s comments
Responding to a magical site overlooking Gordons Bay, NSW, this house embodies the spirit of seaside living. The design is discreet in scale, has a quiet focus and layered materiality, and is sensitive to site and neighbours, providing mystery and privacy along Sydney’s busiest coastline.
Responding to a magical site overlooking Gordons Bay, NSW, this house embodies the spirit of seaside living. The design is discreet in scale, has a quiet focus and layered materiality, and is sensitive to site and neighbours, providing mystery and privacy along Sydney’s busiest coastline.
The clients like simplicity and the house needed to speak their language: lean and raw and full of spatial experiences. In this location materials had to be robust: brick, stone and concrete are left raw, and wrap, reveal and protect. Employing structure as finish, and energy efficiency overall, underpin the project’s sustainability principles.
Inside, the house slowly unfolds – a veil of perforated brick wraps the facade, directing the eye and filtering light. At ground level where the family gathers, the view is strategically angled with walls and openings for privacy leading through a series of communal, private and comfortable spaces. In the master bedroom and bathroom above, this takes shape in a series of concealed lookouts for coastal gazing.
Flowing from the living space, a courtyard with an in-built pizza oven is designed for outdoor living; protected from southerly winds. Down the stairs to the waterfront garden, peepholes of light filter through bricks. This is a home that thoughtfully engages with the site at every step.
Inside, the house slowly unfolds – a veil of perforated brick wraps the facade, directing the eye and filtering light. At ground level where the family gathers, the view is strategically angled with walls and openings for privacy leading through a series of communal, private and comfortable spaces. In the master bedroom and bathroom above, this takes shape in a series of concealed lookouts for coastal gazing.
Flowing from the living space, a courtyard with an in-built pizza oven is designed for outdoor living; protected from southerly winds. Down the stairs to the waterfront garden, peepholes of light filter through bricks. This is a home that thoughtfully engages with the site at every step.
Best Sustainable Project: Adam Kane Architects, Yandoit Cabin
An off-the-grid weekender in Victoria that proved style need not be sacrificed for sustainability.
Entrant’s comments
Located in regional Victoria, the modest single-bedroom dwelling has been designed with sharp lines and an asymmetrical form to focus on a high-level skylight. The skylight provides a framed outlook from the mezzanine bedroom, and casts an ever-changing play of shadows on the raked timber ceilings throughout the day.
An off-the-grid weekender in Victoria that proved style need not be sacrificed for sustainability.
Entrant’s comments
Located in regional Victoria, the modest single-bedroom dwelling has been designed with sharp lines and an asymmetrical form to focus on a high-level skylight. The skylight provides a framed outlook from the mezzanine bedroom, and casts an ever-changing play of shadows on the raked timber ceilings throughout the day.
A refined palette of raw materials, including burnished concrete and white-washed plywood, was selected to create a minimal and effortless interior aesthetic.
The utilitarian areas are hidden behind sliding plywood panels, allowing the laundry, kitchen and storage to be concealed from everyday view. As a result, the interior is kept minimal and uncluttered, providing an effortless aesthetic that complements the rural and rugged scenery outside. Externally, metal cladding and concrete combine to create a striking form that sits sympathetically within its rural landscape.
The utilitarian areas are hidden behind sliding plywood panels, allowing the laundry, kitchen and storage to be concealed from everyday view. As a result, the interior is kept minimal and uncluttered, providing an effortless aesthetic that complements the rural and rugged scenery outside. Externally, metal cladding and concrete combine to create a striking form that sits sympathetically within its rural landscape.
With the site disconnected from mains water and sewerage, the design of the home caters towards the functional requirements of the client’s off-grid living. A sustainable approach was taken throughout the design process, with the placement of windows and materials taking advantage of the local conditions.
Natural ventilation and lighting is achieved through the considered placement of windows, while the use of concrete provides thermal mass to passively heat and cool the building. A focus on limiting waste was also considered, with the minimal selection of materials also preventing the pure form from being complicated with unnecessary detailing.
AIA Awards: Alterations & Additions Winners
Natural ventilation and lighting is achieved through the considered placement of windows, while the use of concrete provides thermal mass to passively heat and cool the building. A focus on limiting waste was also considered, with the minimal selection of materials also preventing the pure form from being complicated with unnecessary detailing.
AIA Awards: Alterations & Additions Winners
Best Home Renovation: Ian Moore Architects
A light-filled warehouse conversion in Redfern, NSW, created within a shell that seamlessly blends old and new.
A light-filled warehouse conversion in Redfern, NSW, created within a shell that seamlessly blends old and new.
Entrant’s comments
This adaptive reuse of a former warehouse has maintained the exterior almost untouched, with only a few new windows inserted into existing openings.
This adaptive reuse of a former warehouse has maintained the exterior almost untouched, with only a few new windows inserted into existing openings.
This soft touch has been extended to the interior, where original brick walls have been exposed and the large timber roof trusses highlighted as the starting point for the conversion to a four-bedroom home, with self-contained guest accommodation, a home office to be used as an equine genetics laboratory, and a large garage to store a collection of classic sports cars.
There was a strong emphasis on maintaining an industrial feel to the conversion, with new work complementary but clearly distinguished from the original fabric. The upper level is divided on strict alignment with the existing trusses, with the underside of the trusses used as a horizontal datum. All solid walls stop at this level with clear glazing above to enclose the cellular spaces, while allowing visual continuity of the trusses and ceiling throughout the space.
A large, hot/cold and noisy space has been transformed into a comfortable family home by locating all household spaces on the upper level, effectively a single-storey house, while ancillary spaces are on the lower level.
Large outdoor recreation spaces flow off the main living space, allowing natural light and ventilation, as well as views to the sky and new landscaping, where even the family dog gets real grass on the terrace. Material and furniture choices provide comfort, low maintenance and colour to enliven the space.
Large outdoor recreation spaces flow off the main living space, allowing natural light and ventilation, as well as views to the sky and new landscaping, where even the family dog gets real grass on the terrace. Material and furniture choices provide comfort, low maintenance and colour to enliven the space.
Highly Commended, Best New Build: Kennedy Nolan, Sandy Point House
Entrant’s comments
Perched on the coastal dunes of eastern Victoria, this is a holiday house for a family who has a long association with the modest beachside hamlet of Sandy Point. The house is located on a steep sloping block, principally built from timber suitable to its bushfire-prone setting, ultimately designed to grey off and be camouflaged in its indigenous planted setting.
Entrant’s comments
Perched on the coastal dunes of eastern Victoria, this is a holiday house for a family who has a long association with the modest beachside hamlet of Sandy Point. The house is located on a steep sloping block, principally built from timber suitable to its bushfire-prone setting, ultimately designed to grey off and be camouflaged in its indigenous planted setting.
The pinwheel plan arranged around a protected inner courtyard is a refuge from the prevailing winds and weather. The courtyard has the characteristics of a cloister in that it provides a protected external connection between the four separate zones.
The complex spatial, formal and programmatic functions of the house are synthesised in a cohesive visual expression.
The complex spatial, formal and programmatic functions of the house are synthesised in a cohesive visual expression.
The house has a strong and consistent aesthetic, which has been applied to every element. The external and internal forms are carefully modelled to mediate the complex arrangement of space into a coherent visual expression. The varied volumes of the interiors and the many level changes are unified by undulating and rolling timber ceilings.
The colour palette is built around muted, natural tones found in the surrounding landscape, and the intensity is varied to shift the atmosphere and mood as you move from room to room.
World Architecture Festival: Aussie and NZ Homes in the Finals
World Architecture Festival: Aussie and NZ Homes in the Finals
Highly Commended, Best Home Renovation: FMD Architects, Bustle House
Entrant’s comments
The familiar task of renovating an ageing, unavailing 19th-century Victorian terrace in inner-Melbourne, Victoria, developed itself into a more concerning conversation about how our constantly changing society lives and responds to the preservation of architecture of the past. Perched on a hill and on an elongated corner site, the house was thought of through its side elevation.
Entrant’s comments
The familiar task of renovating an ageing, unavailing 19th-century Victorian terrace in inner-Melbourne, Victoria, developed itself into a more concerning conversation about how our constantly changing society lives and responds to the preservation of architecture of the past. Perched on a hill and on an elongated corner site, the house was thought of through its side elevation.
With the Victorian ‘lady’ in mind, concepts were developed as though they were Victorian portraits of women taken in profile. Used as a language of self-expression, the bustle dress became the architectural equivalent of how our extension would add presence to the existing house without dramatically recreating its identity and aged grace.
Containing a kitchen, dining room, bathroom and laundry, the addition is central to the site and accompanying garden.
Containing a kitchen, dining room, bathroom and laundry, the addition is central to the site and accompanying garden.
This importantly enabled the extension to blur the relationship to the adjacent street and community, an important response to the traditional private backyard. The language of the bustle is referenced in the curved walls and windows of the extension and the ribbon of timber that oscillates along the side boundary of the house. The language is of the bustle train with the timber balustrade its lacework and the trees that grow throughout its embroidery.
Our architectural addition didn’t wish to reshape ‘who’ our building was, and we didn’t wish to change its face or identity. Instead, we were conscious of allowing the house to age gracefully by acknowledging its weathered nature as a thing of beauty and respect.
Your turn
Which of these homes do you love? And which ideas appeal to you? Tell us your favourites in the Comments below, like this story, save the images, and join the conversation.
More
Are you up-to-date with the latest from this year’s awards season? Catch up on everything you need to know about the year’s design awards here
Our architectural addition didn’t wish to reshape ‘who’ our building was, and we didn’t wish to change its face or identity. Instead, we were conscious of allowing the house to age gracefully by acknowledging its weathered nature as a thing of beauty and respect.
Your turn
Which of these homes do you love? And which ideas appeal to you? Tell us your favourites in the Comments below, like this story, save the images, and join the conversation.
More
Are you up-to-date with the latest from this year’s awards season? Catch up on everything you need to know about the year’s design awards here
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The trend to vaulted ceilings in 2019 has me worried since they impact on heating and cooling massively despite the lovely looks. Anyone else think this?
Love the roofline in the “weekender“ but I think that it would be even more impressive without the mezzanine.
suancol- I guess it depends on all the other factors ie how is the building insulated/ orientated/ what climate is it in/ how is it heated/cooled/ presence or absence of fans etc. It probably needs to be judged on a case by case basis rather than a blanket statement