Description

In response to the culturally diverse suburb that is Kilburn and as an opportunity to challenge what existed there prior, The Cycad House takes inspiration from innovation and trying something new. As a project deeply rooted in the owner’s own passion for horticulture, the existing garden was a key source of inspiration - spanning decades of planting, grafting, and propagation. Ngoc’s own memories of growing up amongst Vietnamese brutalist architecture, softened by lush greenery, shaped our approach. It was important that the built elements of the home needed to sit in harmony with nature. The Cycad House is conceived as a gallery for the garden, with five courtyard gardens woven throughout the home, each framed to be experienced sequentially as one moves through the space. Brutalist-inspired concrete blocks come together to create a structural backbone, with time and the hands of nature intended to allow the landscape to grow and evolve, enveloping the structure over time. Together with a central courtyard featuring Japanese maples and a water lily pond, each room needed to connect outward, while also bringing the living elements inside. The courtyard becomes both the beating heart of the home, as well as being a calming transition space – an internal greenhouse – connecting the existing home to the new addition, while also softening the threshold between old and new. The integration of plantings creates both diffused light and shadows, with the use of concrete blocks and concrete floors internally creating increased thermal mass, absorbing northern sunlight and as a passive heating source. Ngoc’s own dedication to gardening is reflected and captured throughout the home and in detailed moments, and it is in her hands that the home will grow and change with its environment for years to come.

AWARDS

• SA architecture awards 2022 - residential alterations and additions - commendation