2017 Gallery
Winner: Australian House of the Year
Vokes and Peters for Auchenflower House
A modest timber cottage has been carefully modified and extended to accommodate a young family and orientate the building’s occupants towards the garden.
Jury Citation
This project is distinguished by its deceptive simplicity. It is the result of the architecture practice’s sustained investigations into the Queensland vernacular, and the straightforward application and sensory qualities of utilitarian materials.
By identifying “the private house as a critical piece of city-making,” the architects confer on this project a commonly missed role. In detail, the interpretation of the brief and site aligns with Fernando Távora’s idea that “each case is a case.”
The architects’ siting strategy explores the potential of quiet suburban spaces and associations, apparent and real boundaries and notions of private and communal space.
The building forms, scale, plans, details, composition and sections acknowledge the suburban street-corner relationship, making beautiful connections with the carefully observed conditions of the site.
Auchenflower House offers an inventive model for working with traditional housing on suburban blocks and provides an intelligent and poetic paradigm for current practice.
