17
You bring a particular, idiosyncratic sensibility
to your work. It’s a very specific, material-driven
architecture with a very singular voice. This seems
to fly in the face of the mantra for collaboration.
What was the design inspiration and reference you
first observed about Fairhaven?
The idea for its materiality and colour came from that
very first visit. We asked the question could we make
use of the existing hardwood and bush colours such
as the eucalyptus obliqua. That influenced everything
from the green zinc cladding to the glass to timber
linings. The only applied colour resulted from where
we took photos of lichen and fungi taken from the site.
We proposed colours that really came out of the fungus,
leaves and lichen and our clients were very receptive
to this as fine areas of very intense coloration.
THERE’S A REAL
RAWNESS AND IT’S
AN ABSOLUTELY
RIGOROUS PROCESS.
John Wardle,
Principal Architect
That’s a pretty irresistible rationale.
Once you set up such a rule it can produce some
quite unexpected consequences and the colours on
the forest floor become almost proportionally set
in the house. You will see it in the details such as the
key joinery elements where the smallest incarnation is
evidence of that color just as the lichen may only be a
small but important point of colour in the bush setting.
The Material Man
We work at a fairly intense pace and very closely,
drawing on many team members to work across
each phase of a project. It’s an absolutely rigorous
and intensive process and the ideas build momentum
as others from the office apply their own inputs
to develop the detail. A great technical process is
drawn into the creative mix to ensure the operation
of all systems and elements.
You create your own rules about windows and walls
where they substitute for one another. What is the
background to ѡ