Taranaki Avenue is a new family home in Brunswick East, built for returning clients on a block chosen so the length of the home, and every habitable room within it, could point north towards the sun.

The owners wanted their home to be sustainable and were drawn to a site where the existing house was beyond saving, so nothing serviceable would go to waste. That ethos runs through the finished home, from its recycled timber to its performance credentials.

Along the northern ground-floor facade runs a colonnade of round timber posts. These are tactile and intended to bring the landscape inside. Sourcing seasoned timber of sufficient structural quality was complex, and Foomann and DC Building hand-picked the posts in Kinglake, then sent them to the last machine in Victoria capable of turning poles at that size. Offcuts were kept and reworked into the legs and footrest of the dining table.

Inside, spotted-gum veneer carries the colonnade’s material through the ground floor, with celery-top pine lining the rooms above. Joinery throughout is by Mood Workshop, including a spare room fitted with a Murphy bed and cabinetry shaped to house the family’s musical instruments. Hand-made ceramic pendants by local maker Fluff Corp punctuate the living spaces.

Upstairs, the angled roof form opens the rooms to light-filled volumes and frames views of the eucalypts in neighbouring gardens. A small square window reads as solid from the street but, made of perforated mesh, gives the kids’ room both a view out and ventilation. In the main bathroom, the brief was to lie in the bath and see the sky.

The home pairs that connection to nature with environmental performance. Deep 140-millimetre stud walls allow R4.0 insulation, and every pane of north glazing is shaded, whether by the first-floor overhang, by perforated mesh that lets windows open fully while preventing overlooking, or by motorised external blinds. Set behind a fence pulled back to give landscape to the street, the house meets its neighbourhood generously.

Street Approach
The new house meets the street with its fence set back to make room for landscape in Brunswick East.

Animation
Foomannimation by Isobel Knowles

Landscape
The garden by Phillip Withers features a deck and built-in seating framed by a steel pergola.

North Facade
Full-height lift-and-slide glazed doors by Pickering Joinery open the ground floor to the garden, shaded above by the first-floor overhang.

Colonnade
Recycled spotted-gum posts, turned round, run the length of the northern facade as a tactile landscape element.

Kitchen to Garden
The length of the ground floor opens directly to the deck, with every habitable room oriented north to the sun. The table, built by by The Makery Club, has legs and a footrest from column offcuts.

Kitchen
The Kitchen connects to the laundry/pantry and through to the bike garage.
Spotted-gum joinery by Mood Workshop, stools by Adam Cornish Design and porcelain lights by Fluff Corp

Kitchen Detail
Joinery by Mood Workshop. Benchtops and decorative metalwork indoors and out by Mackinley Fabrication

Timber Columns
Sourcing and machining these elements was a deceptively complex task

Spare Room
A Murphy bed folds away into spotted-gum joinery shaped to house the family’s musical instruments.

House to Garden
The family pups Fred and Sparrow (not pictured) were given full consideration.

North Orientation
The first-floor form cantilevers over the ground floor glazing while upstairs windows are shaded by a combination of perforated mesh and motorised blinds.
Beyond, a separate art studio is accessed through the garden.

Main Bedroom
The bed sits on a raised platform, an atmospheric transition that also makes a spot for slippers and a higher vantage point to take in the view.

Kid’s Bedroom
The front room upstairs, shaped by the angled ceiling, with a built-in desk beneath the window.

Form
The angled volume and expressed roof plumbing relate to the older rooflines around it.

Deck
A restrained palette of hard landscaping, worked to offer several different places to occupy