Paired Townhouses
This demanding project explores the architectural opportunities of pairing.
A pair of townhouses on adjacent sites for a pair of graphic designers who are business partners and friends.
Our principal question in designing two residences for clients so closely aligned is where does identity merge or separate? The courtyard typology is the starting point.
A central shared courtyard space has the flexibility to be divided or open between the occupants. The courtyard greatly increases opportunities for natural light penetration and cross ventilation into both townhouses. This idea recognizes and relies upon the friendship of our clients and the opportunity to borrow light and space from each other to create a greater sense of scale.
These townhouses maintain a contextual single-storey cottage scale on the street, stepping up to two-storeys at the rear of the site. The gable profile is a graphic representation of home and hearth yet when repeated and paired, it gains an abstracted ambiguity of scale and meaning. It joins to become one undulating roofscape in foreground and background.
These townhouses are externally similar to enable economies of repetition yet individual in their internal layouts and finishes, each customised to the discrete nature and character of each client.
- Traditional Custodians Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people
- Location Footscray VIC
- Year 2009–2013
- Sustainability 6 Star Energy Rating
- Site area 190m2 each
- Floor area 120m2 each
The decision of the clients very early on to fit two narrow houses onto the site meant that both townhouses were able to be designed and built concurrently, so there was an economy of scale and dual construction.
The idea of pairing and sharing provides an alternative housing model.
The clients were enthusiastically involved in all design and financial decisions, and were happy to embrace aspects such as exposed blockwork internally.
The luxury of a double height living space is a joy rarely found in projects of this scale and budget.
Small single fronted houses are very much the language of the area, and we wanted to continue this scale and density of built form to be sympathetic to the existing grain.
The gable profile is a graphic representation of home and hearth yet, when repeated and paired, it gains an abstracted ambiguity of scale and meaning.
The townhouses are mirrored in plan and form, pivoting around a central shared courtyard.
The friendship of the clients allows this design to be possible, and the design cements their relationship through proximity, similarity and difference.
