Whether designing a new house or extending an existing home, Australia's Austin Maynard Architects' work is always interesting. The recently-completed King Bill is no exception. The project involved the renovation and extension of an old but fairly typical terraced house in Melbourne into something unique.
King Bill (named after the street it's located on) came about when a family commissioned Austin Maynard Architects to renovate and extend its aging terrace, originally constructed around 1850, into a "forever home." The family secured an adjacent empty plot was secured and also requested that a dilapidated stable on the site be incorporated, too.
There's a lot going on with this busy project but the most eye-catching area is the stable. Sporting a new distinctive metallic curved facade, the two-story structure serves as a garage and library downstairs, while the parents' bedroom and bathroom are located upstairs. A large net is also installed to provide a fun place for hanging out.
A glazed passage links the stable to the original house, which now features the children's bedroom, a music room, laundry room, and guest room. It also connects to an extension that contains the main kitchen, living and dining area. This shared family space opens up to the outside with operable glazing and sports a mesh screen that will eventually be covered in greenery.
It sounds like Austin Maynard Architects went to considerable lengths to ensure that existing trees and plants weren't destroyed during the job. The firm went so far as arranging the foundations and cantilevering the single-story extension to ensure roots weren't destroyed.
King Bill boasts a degree of sustainable design, too. Rainwater is channeled into an underground storage for toilet and irrigation use. A solar panel array is installed on the roof to cut down on mains electricity needs and a focus on maximizing passive ventilation and reducing solar heat gain ensures that air-conditioning use is minimized.
Source: Austin Maynard Architects
