intricate re-working – revisited

Fitzroy Terrace brings me so much joy at every turn. The devil is in the detail and I urge you to look closely at the intricate re-working of a previously run-down double-storey terrace in the gritty, northern fringes of Fitzroy designed by Taylor Knights.
The design itself represents a real ‘obscuring’ between the old and the new through the deliberate play of thresholds and vertical journeys through the internal spaces.
Plagued with issues of darkness, damp, and poor ventilation, the studio focussed on injecting light deep into the footprint of the home through a series of light-catching volumes and openings. In addition, the interior spaces have been reconsidered using the principles of ‘inverted living’, flipping the original arrangement by lifting living spaces onto the first floor to make best use of the improved light access, natural ventilation and valuable aspect to the north and south.
Central to the project brief was to create a series of flexible, layered spaces that would accommodate the constant flux of the client’s lifestyle – for treasured moments of enveloping calmness, and for other times shared with a wider community of family and friends.
The studios strategy was to introduce a series of undulating floor plates and ceiling forms; the simple tool of compression and expansion – of capturing lightness and distilling darkness – and celebrating the thresholds created in-between.
The mediation between polished materials and the raw concrete rippling overhead forms are part of the complex interplay of form, and craft that makes this project remarkable.