AIA Robin Boyd Foundation Open House

Each year the Australian Institute of Architects’ Victorian Awards program provides an opportunity for the profession to showcase and discuss the best works completed in the previous year. The open days organised by the Robin Boyd Foundation enable you to view and consider a group of houses that demonstrate a generational change that is occurring in the design of homes for families.

In the fifties and sixties the standard home was often designed simply for the basics: somewhere to sleep, eat, wash, and then a single communal (lounge) space. Homes were not generally designed as workplaces, but as places to relax after work and on weekends. In the seventies and eighties these communal spaces began to segment and formal lounge rooms and informal family rooms were introduced to enable differing age groups and activities to co-exist.

The houses in this series of open days show how the family home is now beginning to emulate the workplace. Houses incorporate a much greater variety of inter-related and adaptable spaces, and this reflects the way we live today. They include a series of connected spaces that provide for working from home, media and projection areas, quiet spaces to withdraw, and active spaces to engage with the rest of the family or visitors.

As changing concepts of ‘family’ are recognised within our community the design of the family home must change as well.

On Sunday the 23rd of August, Metropolitan Melbourne Projects open their doors.

Tickets for the Metropolitan Melbourne open day, the St Andrews Beach and the Northern Victoria open days can be purchased via the Robin Boyd Foundation here.

Image: Peter Bennetts

Tower House

Andrew Maynard Architects
John and Phyllis Murphy Award – Residential Architecture (Alterations & Additions)
“Tower House is a village externally and a home internally. The clients and their twin sons asked for a home ‘for community, are and nature to come together.’ We designed them a village.”

Image: John Gollings

Mexican Contemporary House

Andres Casillas de Alba and Evolva Architects
Commendation – Residential Architecture (New)
“Deliberately subverting conventional planning, the layout focuses the interior towards the east-facing backyard where an oasis of garden and pool, surrounded by high walls, conveys a monastic sense of tranquility. In fact, the plan follows a centuries-old Spanish quadrangular arrangement, where rooms open off one central space.”

Image: Peter Clarke

House 3

Coy Yiontis Architects
Architecture Award – Residential Architecture (Alterations & Additions)
“This is not a big house. Considered planning and the integration of indoor and outdoor achieve a generosity and variety of communal spaces for the family at odds with the actual size of the building. Private areas are restrained and humble. It is an urban home that functions successfully for a multi-generational family and its evolving needs.”

Image: Peter Bennetts

Local House

MAKE Architecture
Architecture Award – Residential Architecture (Alterations & Additions)
“Inspiration for this project comes from thinking about how this family live and enjoy life. Spaces are playful; conceived more like a favourite local cafe than a house, reflecting this family’s desire to create a home that allows them to connect with friends, family and their local community.”

Image: Fraser Marsden

The Bow House

Edwards Moore
Commendation – Residential Architecture (New)
“The use of internal operable walls and multi-functional joinery elements create flexibility for the plan to grow and adapt to the changing needs of the family within it. The design supports the gentle transition between the spatial functions of the home, a series of implied spaces that allow for visual connectivity between them.”

Image: Trevor Mein

Bridge House 2

Delia Teschendorff Architecture
Commendation – Residential Architecture (New)
“Bridge House 2 has been designed for a young family and is a serene, sculptural oasis on a busy suburban street in West Brunswick. In response to the site condition, the building ‘turns it back’ to the street and internalises its views, focusing on three courtyards around which all the home’s spaces and program are organised.”

Image: Erica Lauthier

Fat Plan on Faraday Street

The Rexroth Mannasmann Collective
Commendation – Residential Architecture (Alterations & Additions)
“The design solutions generate spatial complexity within the simple shell. The interior of the warehouse offers a series of spaces which are both interlocking and discrete. They are not immediately knowable but are apprehended as unified whole through the experience of living in the space.”

Image: Richard Glover

Dreamcatcher

Fiona Winzar Architects
Shortlist – Residential Architecture (Alterations & Additions)
“This project recycles a 1980s clinker brick townhouse, in the process transforming it into a spacious and functional 21st century family home. The focus is on adaptable use of space and sustainable design.”

Image: JCBA

Upper House

Jackson Clements Burrows Architects
Best Overend Award – Residential Architecture (Multiple Housing)
“Upper House is responsive to its context, yet breaks the bounds of it. It delivers on compact, well planned and quality housing, likely to stand the test of time.”

Image: John Gollings/RBF

Domain Park

Grounds, Romberg, Boyd (Partner in Charge Robin Boyd)
Enduring Architecture Award
“This Award recognises that good design endures. In 1962 when Robin Boyd’s 20-storey tower was completed, it was the tallest multi-residential building to grace Melbourne’s skyline and remained so for another 10 years. Today it still stands as a landmark and icon. The Domain Park Apartments are a proven and highly desirable living option.”

This post originally appeared on the Robin Boyd Foundation website and is reproduced here with their permission.