Sea Breeze

The table was commissioned by the family at our Roscommon House for their enjoyment of everyday outdoor eating in their courtyard space. The courtyard was open to the elements, so the table needed to be durable. The table needed to seat up to eight people. Neil also selected the Tait Furniture ‘Volley’ outdoor chairs to pair with the mood of the house and table.

Brad, Lisa & Neil had many discussions about how the house should feel like it sat comfortably in the unique suburb of Floreat. With a significant legacy of modernist and brutalist buildings still remaining in suburb, I felt a responsibility to produce a design for this new house that not only served the needs and desires of my clients but was also in conversation with the ethos of the suburb, without mimicking or replicating the past.

We carried out a photographic survey of the original modernist buildings in the area to find in excess of seventy such buildings still remaining. This information was then used to inform our design of Roscommon House in studying the devices and form making of the original buildings of the area. We found these buildings to show a consideration of the environment, consideration of orientation, simplicity of form, strong forms, transparency and an honest modesty to be consistent across the buildings. We found a regionally distinctive form of architectural modernism, independent from the rest of Australia.

Through the design of Roscommon House and through our community engagement we are taking every opportunity to create an appreciation & awareness of the unique architecture of this area to both the local community and to the local authority.

In keeping with suburbs ‘Garden Suburb’ town planning history, landscaping was designed to enhance the blurring of the boundaries of inside and out by the use of ‘pocket’ courtyards and roof terrace gardens. The spatial arrangement of the ‘pocket’ courtyards is also driven by environmental concerns: the building is teased apart to maximise winter solar penetration and to capture prevailing cooling breezes. 

The Garden Suburb movement in town planning evolved in the UK in the early twentieth century as a remedy to the congested polluted cities of the Industrial Revolution. The then Town Clerk of the City of Perth, W.E Bold was instrumental in the introduction of the Garden Suburb town planning movement in the conceptual design of Floreat and City Beach. The suburbs of City Beach and Floreat were conceived as part of an ambitious plan for a residential environment with private houses set in garden surrounds where they would be separated by ‘green belts’ of undeveloped bush land and parks. A special advisory committee was created to ensure that all new buildings showed ‘artistic merit’. Large front setbacks without front fencing were enforced so that all houses presented to the street in a landscaped setting. 

Our design for Roscommon House celebrated this local history and embraced the concept of engagement of ‘buildings in a landscape’.