Studio Garage

Location: North Melbourne

Status: Completed in 2016

New single-storey studio garage at rear of house.

This project is a two-storey garage and studio with its own entrance from a laneway, separate from an existing terrace house in inner-city Melbourne, and created on a budget. This typology of building is increasingly popular due to the proliferation of professionals working from home and the desire to create a dedicated work space that can also be rented out. The design challenge for this extension was that the double-storey wall of the small studio could have been overwhelmingly monolithic at the scale of this inner-city block, which was a concern for the client as well as neighbouring residents.

Elements of the landscape – the colour of the trees in surrounding gardens, the movement of the sun, the shadows of the foliage – were studied in order to make the wall blend into the sky and garden in a gently pleasing manner. The key design choice was to turn the external wall into a non-structural, semi-translucent facade made of white, wavy polystyrene sheeting to imbue visual softness to an otherwise stark flat surface. The facade also acts as a canvas for the shadows of tree branches to play across throughout the day in the manner of a Japanese ink painting. The stairwell was placed between the false wall and the actual wall of the studio and stairwell lights controllable from the main house creates a soft, backlit lantern effect at night.

The client wanted something that blended in. We promised something interesting. The result: something interesting that blends in, a beautiful sculptural studio garage that enhances, and is enhanced by, its surrounding context.

Photo credit: Wei Wei