Bild Architecture

California Dreaming

California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Bild Architecture

ARCHITECTS
Bild Architecture

LOCATION
Australia

PROJECT TEAM
Ben Milbourne, Haslet Grounds, Alison Stout

BUILDER
Max Newman Building

AREA
235.0 m2

PROJECT YEAR
2011

PHOTOGRAPHS
Tanja Milbourne

Text description provided by architect.

California Dreaming is one of a continuing series of projects exploring adaptations of Australian suburban typologies to contemporary housing requirements. Located in an area of inner-urban Launceston originally developed with inter-war

California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne
California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne

‘California Bungalow’ type housing, the project adapts and co-ops this typology to contemporary living styles and expectations for a pair of duplex residential units. Unfashionable for many years this area of the city lay dormant after its initial wave of development, preserving an enclave of inter-war speculative housing.

However in recent years, with sudden gentrification, the area has seen a new wave of housing occupying the abundant infill opportunities. These new occupants, reflective of contemporary ways of living and ways of building sit in stark contrast with the area’s original houses.

The area’s original houses were often indiscriminately placed on the site; with little consideration or adaption to the sites orientation, topography or street address. The project takes the California Bungalow typology as a point of departure, progressively adapting it to the specific site conditions; Sheering the floor plate vertically to minimise cut & fill

Slipping it horizontally to address the street crossover and provide northern oriented private open spaces, and finally extending and wrapping the signature double-gable roof form around the building to provide maximum exposure to northern light in winter, while shielding the interior spaces from the summer sun & western light in the afternoons.

California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne
California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne

While the project formally adapts the California Bungalow type and consciously responds to its neighbours, the plan and programmatic response departs from the reference typology. California Dreaming centralises ‘core’ service program (kitchen/bathroom and laundry), pushing habitable program to the perimeter with ample access to natural light and strong connections to the exterior.

The units are mirrored in plan with the northern orientated living spaces provided with expansive retractable glazed doors, opening out onto private balcony/courtyard the northern views down the valley and across the city.

California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne
California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne

The ‘core’ acts as a spatial catalyst defining the shape and size of the surrounding habitable rooms, while sliding panels alternatively separate spaces into discrete rooms, or retract to form a fluid continuous space where programs are flexible and loosely defined.

California Dreaming is a consciously Tasmanian project responding to the emerging conditions and needs of contemporary infill housing in many of Tasmania’s inner urban areas.

The project synthesizes contemporary expectations for space, light and environmental performance, with the urban presence of an established neighbourhood character.

California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne
California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne
California Dreaming
© Tanja Milbourne

California Dreaming sits in its street scape as something familiar yet alien, an uncanny presence, distinct from both the area’s new housing and the suburbs original occupants, yet familiar and linked to both.


California Dreaming
Site Plan
California Dreaming
Ground Floor Plan
California Dreaming
Elevations


California Dreaming
Form Diagrams
California Dreaming
Context Mapping

Bild Architecture
T +61 3 90188187
Bild Architecture
36 Cobden St, North Melbourne VIC 3051, Australia