Polygreen

Bellemo & Cat is an architect/artist team that freely moves between architecture and sculpture, and between public and private works, including an Australian Technical College, a pavilion in a park, residential buildings and large-scale public art. One of their most recent projects, the design for the team’s own home-office, incorporates a little of the practice’s rich genealogy into its form. It harks back to the team’s zeppelin-like “Cocoon” house project in Wye River, which inspired a sculpture called “2 Cocoon”, which in turn was cut up and transformed into an abstract public art installation called “Polywarp”, which was then photographed and digitally cut up again to become the decorative surface treatment for their home-office. This modest box in Melbourne’s urban-industrial north is therefore both a billboard for the firm, and a printed circuit archiving a little slice of its history.

The site is in a narrow service lane of old brick warehouses, sheds and garages, predominately built to the boundary and pressing right up against the street frontage, to allow for maximum internal space and minimum external fuss. In response, the team designed a structure part warehouse and part shipping container, solid though also temporary-looking, with a delicate translucent skin. Like its neighbours, it is built to the boundary to maximise space on a small, 7 by 16 metre site. The printed skin, glowing green, was peeled back on the northern side to allow for full-size double-glazed doors and adjustable louvres, and an elevated slice of deck along the length of the building. Protected by an awning, the deck has a whimsical artificial turf surface, and a turf-covered slide for the pair’s small children to travel down to the ground floor.

The children, of course, meant the design couldn’t be sheer architectural whimsy – it had to be friendly and livable. Low-maintenance with lots of light and warmth, the house has four storeys using split-level decks, and an office on the ground floor separated from the house by a garage and workshop. The large steps between floors are used by the kids as a theatre. There are distinct living, dining and play areas, while “soft walls” of industrial woven felt maintain the flowing, open-plan environment. The house feels spacious despite its compactness. To make the most of the available amenity, services for hydronic heating are tucked under the floor. Outside, room is also made for a water tank.

Printed with Bellemo & Cat’s design, the structure is largely fiberglass, with a timber and steel frame and layers of plasterboard. The fiberglass was inspired, in part, by the industrial skylights of the area. Lightweight, the material – indeed the entire project – is low-budget.

According to the designers, the choice of colour for the façades was influenced by a neighbour who asked “for a bit of greenery”. It’s certainly cheeky – but the locals would have to be pleased with this light, soft and witty addition to a neighbourhood dominated by hardness and utility. +