Architect Victoria
Market Street- Graham Crist

This project is for a building in a South Melbourne site containing an office and residence. The tightness of the project made necessary a fairly empty shell. This was built for around $98,000 in 1998. The project tested out some cliches of domestic life and the advantages of living in a nonresidential neighbourhood. It engaged seriously the immediate built environment for all its ordinariness and detached itself from petty formal refinements and detail.

The black front (south) facade is flush with the adjacent white workshop, and its parapet aligns with it. It is like an extension to it in negative. The side (west) facade is a blank wall in Maidenhair green as chosen by the neighbour Reg de Winter. The rear facade is largely white polycarbonate stuck to the frame by double-sided tape. A very small window views the Rialto Towers down the rear alley. Site area: 115m2; building area: 140m2; site coverage: 74%; private open space: 30m2. The interior, read through the section, is like a courtyard house with some of the courts filled in, admitting diffuse light from above.

The caretaker’s residence of 115m2 serves as an office/showroom building of 25m2. The disabled toilet represents 18% of the office/showroom area. The house has a bedroom that is 1.8m wide and a skylight only. The interior, read through the plan, reflects a division of space for use which was undecided.

There is no off-street parking, and no residential permit parking. The building should permit change of use, change of decoration, extension or partial demolition very well.