FLOW HOUSE
Heritage Residential Adaptive Re-use
Flow House rethinks a 1940 Art-Deco inspired Interwar cottage into a light filled contemporary home, in which spaces effortlessly flow across a continuum, from the formality of the Interwar, to crisp contemporary areas evoking the Deco, with a soft white palette of Roman bricks punctuated by filigreed black steel frames.
This project seamlessly connects and integrates a mindful contemporary extension to the Art Deco influenced Interwar cottage that sits on this unusual heritage site. The site sits on the northwestern corner of the heritage overlay and has two street frontages, one within the overlay and facing out. The clients imagined an elegant balanced home, achieving an uninterrupted flow between spaces, both old and new, with a design strategy transitioning from one that conserved the Deco features of the existing fabric, to one where new design was informed by them.
Embracing light was also a central driver of the brief, centering on a desire to draw a distinction between the more enclosed, formal, secluded spaces of the original dwelling and the open, bright and crisp spaces for daily life, that define the new. Reorganizing the house to look out through its fine steel framed glass walls onto its rear garden, with an indefinitely unobstructed access to north-western light, has transformed this outdoor space from one of service, to one of relaxation and repose, that frames the interiors and drenches them in warm afternoon light.
Kew
Photography: Sharyn Cairns | Jaime Diaz-Berrio
Architecture & Interior Design: Lai Cheong Brown
Stylist: Claire Delmar
Landscape: Ben Scott Garden Design
Builder: M & H Broadbent