Form & Simplicity

My Faculty Dean Alec Tzannes once commented that when two parts of a site are presented with different constraints, it is important to address them by the nature of their problem, as opposed to forcibly applying a style or an architect’s signature design.

The proposed project was a speedboat display warehouse with a boatyard and a caretaker’s residence at Woolloomooloo Wharf. The warehouse and boatyard were to be located on a semi-military/industrial site while the caretaker’s residence was to be located on a residential block. The two were separated by a busy four lane road. My analysis of the site was that the warehouse and caretaker’s residence were in fact two separate sites with distinctively different natures.

My design of the display warehouse signifies the hull of a ship via its arched shape. On the other hand, the caretaker’s residence was constructed by an array of vertical walls that separated the living zones from the service areas such as the bathroom and laundry. Between these walls are floor plates which form intersecting double space heights, which in turn form the living area, dining room and bedrooms. Due to the simplicity in the division of the spaces, each room has windows that face either towards the east or the west.

In particular, the bedrooms face the east to capture the sunrise and each new day, while the living spaces face the west for views of sunset.