Design Mag Vol 3

design

mag

The Blights rejected the common approach of raising the house and

building under – “I actually liked the way the house sat with the natural

ground,” Jayson explains – opting instead to utilise the depth of the site.

Their design also sought to optimise northern and southern light

penetration while dramatising the new spaces and accentuating

their surfaces.

The existing cottage was remodelled to accommodate a lounge,

library/study and master bedroom, while two new bedrooms, a family

bathroom and breezeway form a courtyard infill leading to a kitchen

and dining pavilion. Underneath are a garage, store, fernery and

another bathroom.

An original brick fireplace continued its task of anchoring the old

building. It marks the centre of the extended house, and the starting

point for the new work.The fireplace’s quarter-bonded brickwork also

provided the inspiration for an exploration of patterning using

derivatives of this pattern.“We used it as the cue, it being the hearth

and the central part of the house,” says Jayson.

He describes the loggia brickwork as “a deconstructed English bond”.

Half-brick perforations alternate with open perpends (that is, the gaps

between the vertical brick ends are not mortared) creating a little-and-

large rhythm to the openings and adding another layer of texture to the

project.“Some of the brickwork is incredibly light and delicate in the way it

works as a screen,” Jayson observes. Open perpends also decorate some

solid brickwork.

The downstairs walls are a variation of English bond but with the bricks

turned on edge.The garden walls and platforms are constructed in English

garden wall bond, a further derivative of English bond.

The extension and hard landscaping is a celebration of the bricklayer’s art.

The designers and the bricklaying team, Shane Norton and Rese Rose

Gates, better known as Elvis & Rose, fully exploited brickwork’s small-format

modularity and its capacity to be modelled, perforated and patterned.The

brickwork is not confined to walling but wraps and folds through a variety

of framed vistas, seating, nooks, niches, ledges, plinths and floor surfaces,

ultimately transitioning into the rear landscape via stepped terraces.

Bowral Bricks premium-quality Simmental Silver 50mm dry-pressed clay

bricks are used throughout the formal areas as both walling and laid on

edge as flooring.White sand was used in the mortar for solid brickwork

and flooring.