A New Wing And A Prayer

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday February 8, 2007

Words Jane Burton Taylor

A heritage-listed church and its hall form a piazza with a new home built in the old car park area.

Architect James Russell and his wife Trish had a long-held wish to live in a warehouse. But their search in Fortitude Valley, one of Brisbane's oldest precincts, didn't deliver.

Instead the pair stumbled on a late 19th-century Methodist church and hall. The church had been deconsecrated during the '70s and had functioned for 30 years as an office and theatre space. But it was heritage listed, as was the adjacent hall. "That was an advantage for us because it deterred developers," Russell says.

They moved into the church while Russell thought about how he would make their dream home. "Originally we were going to convert the large church into our home," he says. "It had been heavily modified over the years, so our first project was to demolish everything that had been done to it, to get it back to a big single volume."

After the pair had returned the church to its original uncluttered space, they made another decision. "It wasn't right for a home," Russell says. "It didn't have the cosiness we wanted." It was at this point the architect began to think about the site and its buildings as a "little village".

"We had already restored the church and hall to large single volumes, which suited the heritage value of the buildings," Russell says. The next step was to add another building that would work comfortably with the two originals.

What was once a car park between the church and its hall became the Russells' new home. "It was a grungy, ugly bit of land. We put a house there and it was transformed."

Instead of lining up the new building with the church and the hall, Russell pursued his village idea and set it back, creating a small piazza. He dedicated the ground floor to office and parking space and put the family's residence above that. Walk up a set of stairs into the home and there is a big surprise on the landing - an open-plan living space and a central grassed courtyard, one side of which is bounded by the wall of the old church.

"The courtyard is suspended over the car parking area," Russell says. "It is almost an artificial ground plane." This stroke of genius is perhaps among the reasons the residence won this year's Robin Dodds Award, the top accolade for a house in the Queensland chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects awards, and was given a commendation in the Robin Boyd award, the institute's national residential award.

From Russell's point of view, raising the residence to the first level added privacy and security. It is an intriguing experience to go up a level and discover a full-scale residence and courtyard.

"You go from what is a hard, inner-city space outside," he says, "and as you go into the house, you arrive in a secret garden . . . the design was very much about creating a secure and hidden retreat."

Another surprise is that the main living space, which takes up the bulk of the first floor, has views in both directions. "You look across the road into some great figs on the neighbouring site."

The internal spaces on this level are comparatively tight yet they don't seem small. This is partially due to the outlook and the stacking glass doors in the rooms that bookend the courtyard. The whole space can be opened into one, from the main living space at the northern end to the room labelled "play" on Russell's house plan.

This space is the children's realm. "Toys cover the whole floor. They can leave them out and it doesn't matter, which is nice," Russell says.

At the end of the children's playroom is another of Russell's space-transforming features: a wall of yet more stacking glass doors backed by a fixed privacy screen. It allows in light and air, but conceals the five-storey unit block on the back boundary. "The building is three or four metres away but you feel private and they can't see in."

This privacy screen continues on the upper floor where there is another adult-child divide. The two children's rooms are directly above their playroom and the parent's bedroom is above the kitchen. Two of these rooms open onto the central courtyard via old-fashioned cyclone-style shutters.

There are no bedroom doors and only a covered bridge links the children's and parents' rooms.

The bedrooms are typical of the thoughtful informality of the home. "The bedrooms are more like sleep-outs," Russell says. These rooms have decking around them so if any rain gets through the shutter windows, it won't matter.

The aim

To build a secure sanctuary for our family within a heavily built-up inner-city area and to make sure it allows us to have a strong connection to the outdoors.

Owners' favourite features

The way the rooms relate to the courtyard.

Insiders' tip

Try to embrace the environment where you live.

Time frame

Three years.

Green points

* Retention of original buildings.

* Central courtyard delivers air and light to all rooms.

Architect

James Russell, (07) 3257 0818

Builder

James Russell and Lachlan Nielsen, (07) 3257 0818

Engineer

Bligh Tanner Engineers, (07) 3251 8555

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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