项目名称：克拉克住宅

地点：墨尔本，澳大利亚

设计团队：Austin Maynard Architects

建筑面积：206 m²

竣工时间：2025年

摄影：Derek Swalwell

设计特色：

项目 - 澳大利亚建筑事务所Austin Maynard Architects将墨尔本诺斯科特(Northcote)区一座狭小的木板平房改造成一个经过精心分区的家庭住宅，在这里，室内外的传统界限逐渐消融。这个项目于2025年初完工，充分体现了该工作室将日常必需品转化为设计资产的理念。

Clarke House的改造始于一个看似简单的设计要求：创造允许家庭成员"独处而共存"的空间。建筑师没有采用典型的盒状扩建方式，而是设计了一个阶梯式、相互交叠的形态，由木质格栅屏幕统一起来，这一设计服务于多种功能——提供遮阳、确保隐私，并创造了将整体构成联系在一起的视觉语言。

"问题即机遇"是该工作室的信条，这一点在设计如何将自行车存放、垃圾桶和机械设备等平凡必需品直接融入建筑结构中得到了体现。沿着东侧边界，各种设备被隐藏在滑动屏风后面，而之前未充分利用的侧边小巷现在成为了自行车和垃圾桶的存放处。

室内布局引入了一系列口袋花园和采光井，战略性地布置以便为整个房子带来自然光线和通风，最大限度地减少对机械冷却的依赖，并创造了与绿色空间意想不到的视觉连接。最引人注目的是，传统上用于外部的木板外墙延续到了室内，模糊了新旧、内外之间的界限。

为了家中的青少年，建筑师在上层创造了一个半自主的"公寓"，配有通过隐藏门进入的秘密手工艺室——这一俏皮的设计满足了个人需求，同时保持了家庭的凝聚力。休息区如亭子般伸向花园，带有可完全收回的角落窗户，消除了生活空间与景观之间的界限。

这些设计干预以对可持续性的承诺为基础——该住宅采用100%电力运行，配备太阳能电池板、水暖供暖、高性能玻璃窗和全面隔热，体现了该工作室负责任设计的理念，既不牺牲创造力，也不影响宜居性。

团队 - Austin Maynard Architects成立于2002年，当时Andrew Maynard荣获亚太设计大奖的最高奖项。如今，该事务所已发展成为澳大利亚最具创新力的建筑实践之一。作为被Dezeen评为"年度建筑工作室"和被Archello评为"年度小型事务所"的设计团队，他们创造的建筑既具有概念上的雄心，又能对环境做出响应。

在联合总监Mark Austin（澳大利亚皇家建筑师学会会士FRAIA）和Andrew Maynard（FRAIA），以及执行总监Sophie Whittakers的领导下，这家总部位于墨尔本和霍巴特的工作室将每个项目视为独特的空间挑战，而非局限于类型学约束。他们的作品组合涵盖住宅、商业和概念性作品，特点是形式实验和材料创新。

该事务所采用理性的设计方法论，通过与客户的协作参与，解决宜居性、社区连接和可持续发展等问题。这种方法为他们赢得了享有盛誉的堪培拉奖章，使他们跻身于澳大利亚国家美术馆和国会大厦等杰出获奖者之列。

Austin Maynard Architects对环境责任的承诺体现在高性能建筑外壳、被动式设计策略和创新材料应用中。他们的作品证明，建筑的趣味性可以与技术精确性共存，创造出既实用、可持续又概念丰富的空间——这是建筑能力应对当代环境和社会挑战的见证。

Project Name: Clarke House

Location: Northcote, Melbourne, Australia

Design Team: Austin Maynard Architects

Total Floor Area: 206 m²

Completion: 2025

Photography: Derek Swalwell

Feature:

Project - Clarke House is the renovation and extension of a single-storey weatherboard cottage in Melbourne's Northcote district, once void of light, definition, separation, and all hope of personal space. Inspired by their year living in Japan, the owners (work-from-home professionals and their two teenage daughters) asked for more considered and purposeful space. "Something different" guided the design—modern but not stark or boxy, bright and open but also cosy and comfortable, areas to come together and entertain, and private spaces suited to each individual.

In realising all aspects of the brief and embedding the solutions into the language of the building, the extension became an unusual stepping and overlapping shape. To unify, a batten screen is set over, providing shade and privacy (to both the owners and their neighbours) and bringing together new and old in a simple meeting of forms.

The structural design is ingeniously configured with a new side entry, to bypass private space and reorient access into the centre of the house. The gate opens into the first of three pocket garden/light wells, inviting air flow and views of greenery, penetrating through to the laundry and the home office on each side. Off the entry, a perforated steel staircase leads directly up to the 'apartment', comprising two bedrooms, a central bathroom 'box', a secret pink craft room, and a study/TV/retreat, with a generous hammock utilising the high ceiling.

To define the original part of the house with respect to the addition, the external materiality of painted weatherboards is continued internally. Not typically used as an interior wall finish, its application draws the exterior inside, creating visual and spatial separation between the old and newly built, and confusing the perception of inside and out. Bluestone paving is used as internal flooring inside the entry to further reinforce the intent.

In strategically avoiding the expansive open-plan living from feeling as the owners feared, "too cavernous" the lounge room extends off the main entertaining zone. Providing just the right amount of space, the form sits slightly raised and protrudes, like a pavilion, sitting within the garden.

Design Team - Austin Maynard Architects was established in 2002 when Andrew Maynard won the Asia Pacific Design Award's grand prize. The practice is led by Co-Directors Mark Austin and Andrew Maynard, both Fellows of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (FRAIA), with Managing Director Sophie Whittakers overseeing daily operations.

This Melbourne and Hobart-based studio employs a deliberative design methodology, addressing issues of liveability, community connection, and sustainable development through collaborative client engagement. Their work has been recognized as Architecture Studio of the Year by Dezeen and Small Firm of The Year by Archello, and they are recipients of the prestigious Canberra Medallion, placing them alongside notable buildings like the National Gallery of Australia, The Australian High Court, and Parliament House.

The firm is characterized by regarding problems as opportunities, forging creative solutions to turn everyday necessities into design assets. For the Clarke House project, Kathryne Houchin worked alongside Andrew Maynard and Mark Austin as part of the project team, demonstrating their commitment to sustainable architecture—the project is fossil fuel free, 100% electric, with a 6.6KW solar system, electric heat pump hot water system and electric heat pump hydronic heating system, and comprehensive insulation throughout.

Austin Maynard Architects' work demonstrates that architectural playfulness can coexist with technical precision, creating spaces that are simultaneously functional, sustainable, and conceptually rich—a testament to architecture's capacity to address contemporary environmental and social challenges.