Compound House by MARCH studio

Compound House
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

Our first site visit to Brighton revealed a condition prevalent in many opulent suburbs. Pleasantly wide and tree lined streets are noticeably inactive. Large blocks are surrounded by two metre high fences extending to the front boundary. With electric gates and off street parking, this ensures that the streets are lacking of the same neighbourhood activity you might find in less affluent suburbs.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

The condition is a result of the home as ‘compound,’ and so began our fascination with the typology. While our Compound House is bound by concrete on three sides it does not present itself to the street as a fortress. Instead, the house is set back, offering an uninterrupted sloping field of native grasses to the streetscape. A copper screened upper floor allows obscured views of figured shadows within, and an angled garage door, eludes to being half open.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

When open, the door reveals uninterrupted views deep into the block, momentarily offering a tantalising view of the entire site and challenging the notion of the ‘back yard’ and private open space. The Compound deliberately exploits the pluralistic neighbourhood character of Brighton. Neo-Georgian, Mock Tudor, French Provisional, British Mc Mansions, Tuscan Villas, Californian Bungalows, Art Deco and Metricon Modern feature heavily in the nearby streets.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

The Compound is resilient, resembling a series of stacked elements opposed to the walls and rooflines of a traditional house. The building speaks to the client’s industrial background by exploiting a collection of infrastructural moments. An embankment batter, concrete retaining walls, triangular trusses and copper ribbons commonly found in Busbars complete a language more akin to an ‘oil refinery,’ as one neighbour described it. A comparison we weren’t entirely unhappy with.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

From the street, the Compound appears to sit astride a grassy knoll. In fact, it is embedded in its site. Bayside’s strict Schedule 3 to Rescode, combined with the narrowness of the title, resulted in the ground floor sinking one metre into the earth. The submersion of the building on the Southern boundary allows Northern light throughout the day and informs a fence.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

Bound by concrete retaining walls it creates the feeling of an outside room. The precast and insitu concrete walls ground the building as a base, onto which six oversized steel trusses are precariously placed. The members reach out to the northern boundary, reinforcing the connection between interior and exterior, and allowing a deciduous vine to be trained along its catenary wires.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

The first floor is a monolithic rectangular box positioned atop the trusses, and offset to create an eave for the living areas below. Inside, the sleeping quarters are veiled in a copper screen inspired by the regularly irregular nature of a bamboo blind.
The Compound house is an adventurous project, averting style in lieu of an exploration into light and shadow, form, texture, clutter, order, chaos, the rational and the random. Oh, and just wait until you see the basement.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

Sustainability
The Compound House is oriented along an East, West Axis, with glazing to the North and solid walls to the south. The thermal mass of these walls, combined with an exposed concrete slab on the ground level, retain and radiate heat during winter.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

On hotter summer months, the copper screen and the offset overhang of the upper floor protects the ground floor from the high summer sun. Catenary wires for a deciduous vine have been incorporated into the trusses, the vine will offer further sun protection during the hotter months. The house is entirely double glazed with low E film and the garden and pool are fed by a submerged 25,000 Water tank.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

Steel
The clients specifically requested that their house harness steel not only as the primary building material, but also as a study into a new type of domestic steel construction technique. Steel is used throughout the building in compression and tension to balance and project volumes and members into space. The house is defined primarily by its 6 oversized steel trusses. These trusses create a split between the upper floor and the lower concrete base, separating the two volumes and making the upper floor appear to float above.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts

The defining act is heroic and industrial, reminiscent of warehouses and bridges. The stacking and engineered gymnastics celebrate steel, and metal generally, as materials of strength and beauty. Bluescope products are used throughout the project, including for the trusses, all roofing and flashings, roof purlins, rotating steel book cases, hydraulic garage door, and a defining black steel stair Bluescope stamps are left exposed. Source and photos Courtesy of MARCH studio.

Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Photo © Peter Bennetts
Compound House
Ground Floor Plan
Compound House
First Floor Plan
Compound House
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