The Cabin

A Delightful Experience:

The Architects Cabin is designed to appeal to James Russell and his partner. Its main delightful features are:

• Open living just like Russell uses in the Brookes st house. This style of living allows the cabin to have fresh air throughout.
• The large window that faces the afternoon sun (and the other windows throughout the cabin) create wonderful shapes when the sun is at the right angle. Light is a very important factor in this cabin, as with the Brookes st house, the open living allows optimal light to pass through the house.
• Bringing outside inside: The front room is both a dining and an outdoor room for relaxing or reflecting. This room is the most important room in the house and it has endless uses.

A Container of Human Activities:

The cabin has been designed to cater for a number of activities, The front room can be used for dining, entertaining, relaxing and working. The studio (triangular room) is created in a way that it is open so that it can be passed 'through'. The inhabitants dont walk from room to room as such, instead, they pass through thresholds.

An Environmental Filter:

As discussed, light is a very important factor in the cabins design. The windows are designed to capture the light and create shadows of different sizes and shapes and create various strengths of light throughout the cabin.

The Cabin is also very open, this allows it to stay cooler in the tropical climate of Mount Methodology. Breezes can enter through the main room and flow all of the way through the house without solid walls inhibiting it.

Water/rainfall: Because the cabin is situated at the bottom of a small hill, in a sheltered cove, drainage has been place at the foot of the hill to stop water from entering the cabin.

Cabin exterior view

Site Plan

Site plan of Counter lever cliffs showing from left: Bamboo wall house, Mooloomba house (middle bottom),My Cabin and The Brookes st House.

Floor Plan

Elevation and Section

Top: Front (western) Elevation

Middle: Section 1

Bottom: Section 2

Key Features carried to my design:

• Bringing 'outside', 'inside': Creating space that isn't outside, nor is it inside space. James Russel does this in the Brookes street house by placing a small patch of lawn in the centre of the house. In my cabin I have taken his idea of open space and used it to create a main room facing the breeze. It is open on three sides allowing free flow of air through the house
• The two large, timber clad openings in the front room are used to create the outdoor feel that James Russell had used so well in the Brookes st house.
• The house has no completely solid walls. These partitions instead create completely open living to allow maximum air flow and less retractability
• 
  

Diagrams

Quick site plan sketch

Basic Materials

First site plan

Bubble Diagram: spaces and adjacency

Early Planning Diagrams

Sunpath: The Cabin is situated on a western coast, The morning sun from the east heats the back wall and in the afternoon the sun shines onto the main open room at the front of the cabin

Site options extended

Site options further discussed

Final site selection

Part c: Mount Methodology and The Cabin

The site that I have chosen for my cabin is shown highlighted in red in the second picture above. Situated on 'Counter lever Cliffs', my cabin will gain the breezes from the coastline however being sheltered by a hill, it will create its own sanctuary for the inhabitants.

I chose this site beacuase it presents a number of constraints, just like that of James Russell's Brookes st Residence.

These sketches show the possible site for a cabin situated at Counter lever Cliffs.

The 'Parti' Sketch

The site plan

Site Plan

1:500

My Drawings and Plans: Section and Elevation

Elevation 1:200

Section 1:200

My Drawings and plans: Floor plans

Floor Plans 1:100

The Three key Principles

A Delightful Experience:

The Brookes st house, 'Delightful' features

The Three key Principles

A Container of Human Activities:

James Russell Designed the Brookes st house to be a robust environment in which his kids could play and learn in an outdoors environment whilst still in the comfort of their home and within his watchful eye. Russell designed the house so that it can be used in many differant ways, it acts as a studio (underneath office space), an entertaining space, a playroom for the kids and a quiet space for relaxing.

The Three key Principles

An environmental filter:

The Brookes st house is wonderfully adapted to the hot, muggy summers and cool winters of the Brisbane climate. The house is like an annex grafted onto the side of the church, with an open air grass patch in the middle. The Architect James Russell, wanted to create an environment that resembled the outdoors and allowed flow of fresh air, but could be shut if required.

3d views:

3d views: Front Facade from Brookes St

House Analysis

Materials, Light and Circulation:

The Architects Drawings

Plans and Drawings:

Site Plan:

Section:

1:200

Floor Plans:

1:200

(Mornement.A & Biles.A, 2009, INFILL, New Houses for Urban Sites, London, Laurence King Publishing)

The Brookes St Residence: A Treasure Tucked Away

The Brookes St House, Fortitude Valley

by James Russell Architects:

A contemporary home and office space nestled between two heritage-liseted, nineteenth-century churches. The house site was previously a car park wedged between the churches and the two main arterial roads that surround it. For the architect, James Russell, there were many hurdles to overcome in the design process. After buying the church in 1992 and living in it for several years, Russell decided to see how he could expand the property further. He had an interesting idea of grafting another building on the side of the church in oder to take up the space of the 'Ugly car park'. It took a six month period for the design process to be completed which was promptly followed by construction of the building.

The new building is composed of steel and glass and is shaped typically as a box. It has a central forecourt covered with grass where both churches can be seen. A small discreet entry leads to the family home upstairs, while tucked below is a small office and car park area. The house is very open and light making it very suited to the Brisbane climate.

Deciding which Exemplar to study

Choosing the house:

I have made my decision on the house that I will study and my final choice is the Brookes St Residence, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. My choice was actually quite easy, the house has a lot of appeal and its design is really quite intriguing. In the first Assignment I must research, analyse, and redraw the house with my own techniques. I will post my progress over the next few weeks.

The Three Exemplar Houses

The Three Houses:
A little bit about each of the three houses I decided to study,