The link to the distant vista to remain part of the public realm

Edition Office presents Fenwick St, a project located in Kew, Australia on a remarkable edge of the Birrarung / Yarra River, adjacent to Yarra Bend Park, with northern vistas to the valley beyond. Perched on the edge of the escarpment, with immediate views along the river as potent as the expansive horizon which unfolds to the north, the site allows unencumbered connections to landscapes which are rare this close to the city.

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

Three visually independent pavilions, rather than a larger whole, could allow a balance of similar scaled forms with the neighbouring houses, while connecting to more immediate green spaces surrounding them. These pavilions also reframe and hold views through the site, rather than simply seeing past its edges.

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

The landscape design has set in motion a desire for the building to become absorbed into the landscape. While living within and being connected to landscape was an important driver, so too was internal delight – light filled private spaces full of comfort and detail.

Photo credit:
Lillie Thompson

Photo credit: Lillie Thompson

Photo credit: Lillie Thompson

Flack studio brought an intuitive response to landscape and context into the interiors, evoking warmth and calm, with moments of dramatic nuance. Material tactility and evolving patina, displaying signs and patterns of life, registered with the weathering of the copper screens and the gradual maturation of the surrounding gardens. A sense of joy in navigation was important, junctions, thresholds, and the associated interplay of materiality were carefully crafted and assembled.

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

Photo credit: Rory Gardiner

The brief required the creation of nine new dwellings on a site that previously provided for one. Within a location of immense environmental and cultural value, the design sought to erode the potential mass of a single large volume and instead allow the creation of three distinct forms upon the site that each yield to the domesticate patterns and scale of the existing streetscape. Working alongside the natural fall of ground across the site, the buildings appear modest in scale in both height and perceived mass.

About Edition Office

Edition Office is an architecture studio encompassing cultural, social, and technological research, enabling exploration of material expression, form, and spatial practice. The experiential qualities of their work enable projects which re-articulate relationships between communities and place. Their buildings enhance and enable connections and interfaces which provoke, question, and enrich both occupants and the public realm. Edition Office works across a wide array of typologies and scales, including residential, institutional, commercial, education, urban design, and interiors.