Against the Grain

The Brisbane suburb of Petrie Terrace has always been an exception to the rule. In the 1860s, when land was subdivided for housing, lots were set at seven perches (approx. 177-square-metres) and modest workers’ cottages emerged, cheek-by-jowl. As population escalated, fears for developing slum conditions prompted 1885 legislation increasing lot sizes to 16 perches (approx. 405-square-metres). The ruling precluded the development of terrace housing which is why Brisbane became a city of pavilions – timber and tin cottages – on relatively generous lots. Despite present day densification, Petrie Terrace remains a tight-weave anomaly in the city’s loose-weave urban fabric.

When Neil and Fiona spotted a vacant seven-perch-block in the area soon after they moved to Brisbane, it sparked in them the idea to build a new house that would be in keeping with the cosy dimensions and quaint streetscape of the historic neighbourhood. Early discussions with architects Paul Owen and Steve Hunt of Owen Architecture centred around how to achieve a sense of generosity within a compact plan.

“Generally Brisbane people can’t believe you can build on 177-square-metres, it’s mind blowing to them,” Neil says. “We’ve lived in Sydney (in a terrace house)… travelled to Japan and seen how the Japanese live in smaller spaces and we wanted to emulate that here with our own version.”

But designing a house that was, by local standards, compact, was not the end game. It was more about finding ways to create a home suited to Neil and Fiona’s way of life, supporting their desire “to live simply and embrace the community”. Civic-mindedness is what defines the architecture. A notion demonstrated from the footpath where garden, pavement and letterbox combine to make an intriguing micro-urban realm. Masonry works hard: stepping to guide visitors to the front door, stacking to fashion the seat and letterbox, circling to frame olive tree and finally, ramping to guide Neil’s Japan-import scooter to its secured base and custom brass wheel lock.

The highly choreographed sequence of movement between street and interior is guided by material expression and supported by a series of carefully manipulated thresholds. The front door, or gate as it appears, announces entry into the private realm and sunlit spaces of the antechamber. Here masonry returns to define small-scale territories; a place for wall-hung bicycles, a seat by the window and brick ledge on which to lean. Sliding glass doors and a diaphanous curtain act as the final filters separating the bustle of the street from the sanctuary of inside.

The largest room in the house, the combined kitchen and dining room, is by anyone’s standards generous, appearing larger still as it spills onto driveway and trellised outdoor room. Other clever, illusionary ploys give the room primacy. Flanking rooms are by contrast, compact but beyond these, views to the street and back garden are framed, bestowing upon the central space an even greater depth of field. A deliberately “singular” visual expression adds to the sense of spatial generosity, achieved through the careful control of material and surface treatments.

The success of ground floor, their access to amenity, to outlook, natural light and passive ventilation, hinges on the articulation of adjacent outdoor spaces. Key to striking balance between built form and open space on the site was the preservation of an almost three-metre-wide slice of land along the eastern and southern boundaries. “Neil and Fiona were pretty sensible from the get-go and understood that if we built over the entirety of the block, it would feel small,” Steve says. The reserved territory lends itself to a variety of outdoor uses, including gathering around the fire pit and communing at the outdoor dining table, in an outdoor climate that is comfortable for most of the year. These ancillary spaces further enliven and complement the building’s interior, adding to its adaptability and multi-purposing potential.

Rooms of the upper floor, including bedrooms, draw upon vast vertical dimensions achieved by means of the pitched roof to produce generosity of scale. Wet areas appropriate the corridor to give over more space for simple ceremonies like tooth-brushing and hand-washing. Neil and Fiona refused to succumb to the developer-driven fear of providing multiple bathrooms. A single shower room is all that is required to dutifully service a house of this size. Such decisions speak of Neil and Fiona’s commitment to designing conscientiously. Another example of this is their decision to employ a lime-based wall and ceiling paint, which over time will absorb carbon dioxide – a decision they believe will pay off in terms of health benefits over a lifetime.

As Paul attests, “constraints – spatial and budgetary – make for better design” and certainly here, domestic architecture has been pushed beyond its limitations to make a building that defies convention. Constraints are what have challenged the architecture to achieve something extraordinary in the face of an exacting city plan. And constraints are the reason that such skill and intelligence has been enacted in order to achieve such ambitious design intentions. The seven-perch-block house, a dormant typology since 1885, has been reinvented for the 21st century and the city is richer for it.