Jury Citation
This striking house of steel and glass is sited centrally on a tiny plot – 7x 21 metres – with vehicle entry off a cul-de-sac. It is an uncompromising piece of carefully resolved residential architecture. Finely crafted and detailed, the lightness of the structure is immediately apparent. The house is in total contrast to its masonry neighbours, yet the skills shown in realising its iconoclastic form allow it to fit into its context.
In architecture, as in art, the more you reduce, the more exacting your standards must be; the more you strip down and eliminate, the greater the pressure on that which remains. This house is architecture as industrial design; a house as a refined and understated piece of machinery – bolted, welded and galvanised – a wrench and oxywelder is all you’d ever need to keep it in tune. Its power derives from a relentless attention to detail and its resolution as an object independent of its context.
The refinement extends to the internal spaces, which work well and which convey the same sense of transparency that exists outside. The interior contains all the appointments that a discerning client would require, and there is no conflict between the minimalism of the architecture and the client’s mode of living.
Project Credits
Connolly Residence, St Kilda
Design Architect Lindsay Holland. Project Architect Lindsay Holland. Project Team Paulo Sampaio, Joseph Reyes. Structural Consultant Tim Hall and Associates.
Landscape Architect Lindsay Holland.
Interior Design Lindsay Holland. Builder Sebastian Fitzpatrick, Fulcrum Building Services. Photographer Eddie Jim, The Age Photo Sales.
