100sqm

In the beginning, building a home was the solution to an issue of housing affordability. After graduating with a Master of Architecture from the University of Queensland, Mathieu Lévesque and wife, Hanna, purchased 400 square metres of remnant land in Chelmer, Brisbane. By their calculations, the cost of constructing a modest home was comparable to buying a two-bedroom apartment in the same area. For an emerging architect the bonus of the new build process was putting into practice many years of architectural training.

Chelmer House and Studio is both a family home and workplace of Lévesque and Derrick Architects (LADA), the studio formed when fellow architect Julie Derrick joined Mathieu’s sole practice. The building reflects the design ideologies of LADA as well as Mathieu’s ambitions to construct his own home, part time, while establishing his professional practice.

“It was always going to be a really small house,” Mathieu says. “We didn’t want to lose what we really liked about the site.” The long sides of the slender property face north/south with a mature camphor laurel (a beautiful but protected “weed”) shading the northern boundary. The eastern boundary addresses an avenue and train line. A sloping site means noise dissipates quickly as you climb toward the rear and western boundary. For these reasons the master plan proposed a small building toward the back of the site, positioned for optimum solar orientation and to maximise garden space to the north.

The building itself is a two-storey rectilinear “box”, a form Mathieu employed to simplify construction. “Before I would hire any trade I thought, ‘worse case, I’ll have to do it myself’, so I kept things simple … and perpendicular,” Mathieu says. The articulation of the “box” is directed by a desire to embrace a sub-tropical climate. This translates to large openings on the northern facade, shutters on the south and solid walls with minimum openings to the east and west.

A simple gable roof shelters the exceptionally slender building which has an internal width of just 3.6 metres. This dimension was set by a minimum bedroom size, rationalised to a 900 mm/1200 mm structural grid and designed to reduce material waste. “The most sustainable thing is that it’s a small home,” Mathieu says. “I think it is appropriately sized at 100-squaremetres (including outdoor patio) for a four- or five-person house”.

In between the steel structure, which is expressed, walls and floors are lined internally with plywood and externally with compressed fibre cement sheeting and timber weatherboards. These materials were chosen for economy and for their unassuming and “natural” finish. Architectural embellishment comes in the form of glass, which is used sparingly as louvre systems and window units and more liberally as frameless panels, both transparent and opaque. The panels are designed to sit directly within the steel structure, held in place only by flashing or timber beading. “The detail of the glass above the walls is really nice because it lets light through at the top level,” Mathieu says. “The glass also resolved the detail of the wall to roof (junction) and kept that (aesthetically) clean.”

Architecturally, the most effort is reserved for the northern perimeter where the building is most articulated and animated. This coincides with circulation spines on both levels, and with timber-framed, sliding windows and doors which work to dissolve this edge. With windows open upstairs, the corridor becomes a verandah and at ground level, a timber “duckboard” running along the edge of the slab makes a seat on the edge of the lawn. In winter, this is the sunniest and most irresistible spot, especially when the earliest rays have been absorbed and thermal mass works to moderate interior temperatures. In summer the narrow floor plate and sides that open ensure constant air flow and a passive cooling effect.

Mathieu’s resourcefulness extends beyond the building to include joinery elements which he designed to ensure spatial flexibility. The kitchen bench and dining table unit are the best example, crafted from laminated Oregon timbers salvaged from the demolition of a nearby bowling alley. The kitchen bench is designed to wheel away, leaving behind the dining table underneath to seat a dinner party of twelve. On a day-to-day basis, the two slot together to serve the dual purpose of kitchen bench and table.

Almost apologetically, Mathieu suggests that the building is the product of innumerable constraints (tree protection, set-backs, local area plan, budget) resolved in built form. But to describe the architecture in such a way would be to overlook the fact that, to ensure an economy of construction and a manageable build, the design employed complex architectural thinking. The simplicity of the architectural language, distilled through the rigorous design and construction process is infused with humble delight and serene modesty. There in lies its beauty.