> ARCHIVE > HOUSING > COMPLETED 2002 > ST LEONARDS, WATHAURONG COUNTRY
This project describes a desire for a big gesture in a little project -making something out of nothing. Compressed, thinned out, or bland translations are the area of this work. There was a desire to mark some public presence to the lost-looking houses nearby- in the way that clubrooms or kiosks do.
To do this, the building is pushed as close to the street as possible and stretched as long as possible on the site. There is very little breadthand only minimum height. In the 2.8m high building, there is an inference of a second storey; a 900mm fascia abstracts the second storey as a roof. The long wall is made in gold, lightly patterned glazed bricks- a saturation of once ubiquitous cream bricks. It faces west and casts its afternoon shadow over the site like a building which is bigger than itself.
A paling fence like those in the neighborhood forms a super-thin courtyard wall. To coerce the suggestion of a wall, and of a courtyard, the front door is a gate in the fence, and the fence has a window facing the house.
2002 appears on the west front in black and white brick. We associate marking a building’s date with nineteenth century pediments, or with a headstone- the smallest of architectural monuments. Writing into a wall suggests a desire to speak, or at least to be named. Carving the encyclopedia of learning onto the Biblioteque St Genevieve was a gesture doomed to obsolescence. Here there is only a year, destined for being dated. 2002 is after the future, after the imagined future of science fiction, the future that didn’t really happen. For the moment, we are only interested in the moment.
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To do this, the building is pushed as close to the street as possible and stretched as long as possible on the site. There is very little breadthand only minimum height. In the 2.8m high building, there is an inference of a second storey; a 900mm fascia abstracts the second storey as a roof. The long wall is made in gold, lightly patterned glazed bricks- a saturation of once ubiquitous cream bricks. It faces west and casts its afternoon shadow over the site like a building which is bigger than itself.
A paling fence like those in the neighborhood forms a super-thin courtyard wall. To coerce the suggestion of a wall, and of a courtyard, the front door is a gate in the fence, and the fence has a window facing the house.
2002 appears on the west front in black and white brick. We associate marking a building’s date with nineteenth century pediments, or with a headstone- the smallest of architectural monuments. Writing into a wall suggests a desire to speak, or at least to be named. Carving the encyclopedia of learning onto the Biblioteque St Genevieve was a gesture doomed to obsolescence. Here there is only a year, destined for being dated. 2002 is after the future, after the imagined future of science fiction, the future that didn’t really happen. For the moment, we are only interested in the moment.
