Occupational hazards can be tricky things to escape sometimes. But when you’re an architect, the desire to renovate and keep renovating your own home must be pretty pressing. Just ask Craig Channon. As both the owner and architect of this standout renovation in Brisbane’s suburban New Farm, he admits that the temptation to keep ‘tweaking’ was a hard thing to ward off at times.
"It was a pretty intense process," says Channon. Having just recently finished the project, Channon has taken an original 1920s two-bedroom bungalow and turned it into a family home, one that reconnects with the garden and features a stairwell at the side, rather than one that runs straight through the middle of the house.
"The original house and site, while having a reasonable aspect, sitting high on a hill with city views and a north-easterly frontage, also represented a typical example of the development in New Farm, which, in the postwar period, saw an influx of Italian migrants to the suburb," explains Channon, who purchased the house in 2002 from an elderly Italian couple.
"All of the internal timber — the floors, walls and ceilings — had been covered and the majority of the windows had been changed to aluminium."
Channon embarked on a minor renovation to remove all the linings and reveal the original VJ (tongue and groove) walls and ceilings before he and his family moved in, but it wasn’t until August 2006 that the major work began. Since then, the house has been raised, shifted forward, twisted and moved over to ensure that the extension has minimal impact on the large backyard.
"From a very early age, our two boys found being in the garden an adventure, and a big part of our motivation for renovating was to maintain and heighten this experience for them, so we actually lifted the lawn up so that you can run straight out onto it from the lower level of the house."
Once in place, Channon also 'built-in' underneath, added a covered, semi-enclosed deck and dining room to the rear, a verandah at the front and the stairs to the side. Flanking the stairwell, both indoors and out, is some truly remarkable brickwork.
"We chose bricks because, not only were they contextual to the New Farm area, but also, practically speaking, at least for the exterior boundary wall, they made sense in that whatever we chose had to be fire rated, have good acoustic properties and we also wanted it to be self-finishing.
"But for me as an architect, I was also particularly interested in using brick. I’ve used a lot of masonry in projects before, but I’d never worked with actual face brickwork, so this presented a good opportunity."
Deciding to leave the brick exposed indoors was also an easy decision for Channon. "The bricks tell something of a story about the craft that’s involved in creating an effect like this."
Using LED Raylinc lights for their energy efficiency, Channon also appreciated the lights’ contribution to the interior ambience, from dramatic to subtle. "We’ve actually strategically positioned the lights so that, at night-time, the interior brick walls are covered with a curtain of light. You get to see the bricks for what they are, flaws and all. It’s beautiful."
Written by Karen Fittall. This article first appeared in Issue 03/2009 of Facing Design, Think Brick Australia's annual magazine.
