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Issue 61 - Vintage Modern Issue

Issue 61

Vintage Modern Issue

The breadth and scope of Habitus has always been extraordinary. With how we live at heart of every issue, we have stepped it up with Guest Editor David Flack of Flack Studio shaking the ‘how’ and looking at new ways to make a house a home. With Vintage Modern as the issues theme, we look at the way iconic design has stayed with us, how daring pieces from the past can add the wow factor and how architecture and good design defy the pigeon hole of their era.

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Exploring tapestry and stitching in Architecture
HomesEditorial Team

Exploring tapestry and stitching in Architecture

Australia

A set of three tapestries resulted in a design exploring the rich concept of stitching, as Annie Reid finds.


 

Fiona Dunin of FMD Architects is well versed in working with timber – she worked with wood luminary John Wardle for six years – but an opportunity to apply her skills in a more unusual way arose when contemplating a new house renovation for her client.

“The only particularly requirement was to find a place in the design for three tapestries that the client’s mother had made,” Fiona says.

 

140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0354

 

The practicalities of the brief were to create new living spaces, move the kitchen and bathroom, and increase the overall natural light to the house – a dark, damp Victorian terrace in Melbourne’s inner city.

Always keen to celebrate each project’s unique elements, Dunin and her team decided to explore traditions of tapestry and stitching techniques in the renovation.

“Our design approach established the concept of stitching the new house from the old,” Dunin says.

 

140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0606
140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0496
140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0573

 

The new, rear kitchen and living space features timber beams that form the thread, which not only stitch this new space to the existing house, but also extend out to the western courtyard. They converge into a large timber column, similar to a bobbin thread, while the timber threads twist over the western courtyard façade to present a sense of unravelling.

“They also provide added shading to the living area, which will soon be overgrown with greenery,” Dunin says.

 
140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0172
140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0081

 

Within the project is no sense of the new beginning and the old ending, but rather an integrated approach to architecture, interior and landscaping, along with Dunin’s well-documented interest in asymmetrical patterns.

“The traditional and the new are in constant dialogue through the built elements,” she says.

Natural elements and sunlight are added through carefully positioned skylights, a water garden and courtyards, designed to enhance ventilation and air access.

“All materials are locally sourced,” Dunin says. “They are just used in rich and inventive ways.”

The house now introduces a spaciousness rare in this part of inner Melbourne.

“It’s an oasis in the middle of the city,” Dunin laughs.

 

140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0235
140125-Cross-Stitch-House-0665

Photography by Peter Bennetts

DROPBOX


Architect: FMD Architects
Architect team: Fiona Dunin, Andrew Carija, Robert Kolak
Landscape architect: Eckersley Garden Architecture
Awards: Shortlisted in the Houses House Alteration and Addition Under 200sq m
Kind of project: Residential
Location: Melbourne
Date of project completion: 2013

FMD Architects
fmdarchitects.com.au


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ArchitectureHome ArchitectureHouse ArchitectureInterior ArchitectureInterior DesignrenovationResidential Architecturetimber


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Issue 61 - Vintage Modern Issue

Issue 61

Vintage Modern Issue

The breadth and scope of Habitus has always been extraordinary. With how we live at heart of every issue, we have stepped it up with Guest Editor David Flack of Flack Studio shaking the ‘how’ and looking at new ways to make a house a home. With Vintage Modern as the issues theme, we look at the way iconic design has stayed with us, how daring pieces from the past can add the wow factor and how architecture and good design defy the pigeon hole of their era.

Order Issue