CLIFTON HOUSE

Location: Peppermint Grove, Western Australia

Status: Completed

Builder: RK Brine

Marshall Clifton house was built in 1951 and represents a turning point in Clifton’s work, evolution of suburban vernacular including a Spanish influence. The house features clinker bricks painted white, with white roof tiles and terracotta tiles to the window sills and other details. The structure of the house is based on a courtyard typology facing north on a traditional quarter acre block. A humble residential dwelling that represents the quintessential Australian dream from days gone by.

We had worked with the clients before on another site and were asked to inspect the house before purchase. The house featured overgrown gardens, water damaged eaves, expanding foam forced in the ceiling vents and was in need of maintenance. But this didn’t subtract from the house’s charm and peaked the client’s curiosity. We were engaged to propose ideas on how the alteration and adaptive reuse could work with the existing character of the house. The brief requested to work with the layout of the house but expand its offerings, a bedroom wing for their eldest child, a modern kitchen with reworked ancillary functions, a versatile carport and outdoor entertaining area.

Reviewing the original drawings the house had layers of additions added to the house through its life. Revised master bedroom, a garage with store, a sun room/office, carport and a revised entry. Spatially our first move was to remove the front entry piece.

Analysing the existing condition of the house revealed the entry addition on the front dictated how the front elevation of the house was understood. Location, hard against the left side of the house and projected forward, separated the front yard into two uneven proportions. An imbalanced reading of the front elevation from public view. Removing this opened the front of the house and shifted the main roof line to read as intended. In its place we put back a flat roof open entry portico with a blade wall piercing the tiled roof reminiscent of the original entry. A hit and miss wall of brickwork added to give some privacy to the front door, while maintaining connection to the whole front of the house. In removing the front entry we saw an opportunity to shift the front door to avoid walking through a living space from the original layout. Shifting the front door to the first third of the house allowed a new connection from the living space to the front garden. We added a sliding door with a deck from the new entry that allowed a cross flow of energy. During design we joked ‘the introverted courtyard house who befriended the front’. The flat roof of the entry inspired by modernist Architects of the era informed the the built language for the carport and the outdoor pavilion. The choice of flat roof is subservient to the house with its pitched cement tiled roof. Spatially the house arranges itself with a spine of circulation that wraps around the courtyard facing north. Originally this hallway was the sleep out and ended at the kitchen. As part of the new works we continued the sleep out into the garage connecting to the new teenage wing. Full height glass sliding doors enclose this section linking the kitchen to the courtyard allowing for easy access and letting more north light into the main open plan kitchen living area.The ensuite to the master bedroom was flipped with the bedroom so the bed position can look out to the courtyard.

Craft in detail is expressed throughout the house as developments on original details for new design elements. The Front door is a reinterpretation of the existing front door as well drawing inspiration from the fireplace roman bricks, featuring timbers that step out. With a handle wrapped in brass featuring timber stepping out in the opposite direction to the door. The act of opening the door the handshake with the building requires trust as you insert your hand into the handle not seeing where your hand goes to pull it open. To mark the original sleep out hallway stone marble has been inlaid into the floor. The kitchen island a heavy stereotomic mass of brickwork in stack bond skinny white Spanish bricks finished with a 100mm thick stone island bench top in the same marble as the floor.

Colour palette of the original house is white roof, white bricks with terracotta details to the window sills - the beginning of Clifton’s Spanish influence seen on the project. Baltic pine ceiling linings used for all the eaves on the project. Internally jarrah floorboards with textured plasterboard in key rooms. These materials we wanted to keep and work with them. New works restrained with muted tones to not compete with existing, 2 pac paint in an soft grey for the kitchen cabinetry. Client was inspired by a interior fit out of an apartment with similar themes to the house that used two stones together that defined the colour palette for the project. Paonazzo marble became a key material for new insertions.

While in key architectural moves colour was informed by key existing assets, the new elements sort to play secondary feature and not to shift focus, cabinetry and internal fittings were allowed to introduce colour which became a developing conversation with the client who’s experience and background became a key consultant defining spatial feeling, tone, and shade of the spaces.