GALLERY 2

ALBURY RESIDENCE. (Conventional architecture)                                            (Click on each image to enlarge)

This is the most finely detailed and spectacular house we have designed so far. It was all hand drawn 20 years ago and the building from one end to the other is set out in tile dimensions so that no-where on the floor or walls is there a cut tile. We are a bit professionally anal about not cutting tiles, and lining up taps and plumbing outlets on joints between tiles!

Apart from their space needs, the client left the complete design to us. I suggested that if they would trust me, I would make a world trip buying special items for the house because I could fund the trip and save them considerably more than the cost of the trip and they would have a house with some very unique features. They agreed! This is what you see below in the photographs.

So, this house has 22 hand carved teak columns, ceramic fountains and water features and garden lamps all made specially to order in little villages in Indonesia. The magnificent capiz shell doors were made in the Philippines. Each shell taken from the sea is flattened by a secret process and then fitted into the doors as 2" square window panes........ hundreds to each door. They are translucent, and before glass became available in the Philippines, all windows were made this way!

Our clients are having a change of lifestyle, moving from the country into the city, so we are now designing a new and exciting town house for them. A completely different style but again we will use these capiz shell doors made for the project in the Philippines. The same supplier is manufacturing the new doors. It was more difficult this time because of over fishing, large shells are very difficult to find. But we did!

With the owners moving into the new house in mid 2014, this very special house has now been sold to a local builder who has made changes to stamp his own style on the building and destroyed it's architecure.

Below the images of the Hawksburn Road house, we will include images of the new town house. Again this is a very unique house architecturally. A theme for this house has grown by itself when we needed a pelmet and trim around the living room. Because the owner is in the national  road transport business, we called the trim the "Yellow Brick Road". As the design progressed we did some research into the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizzard of Oz and found that it was a road in New york. In fact there were two roads, one the Yellow Brick Road and the other the Red Brick Road. We have two very wide doors that close over the Bar. The doors will be painted grey white to match the walls. Superimposed over the surface of the doors will be a copy of an 1830s map of New York in a slightly darker shade of grey.... very subtle, and with the Yellow Brick Road in yellow!. It will be a very big but quiet graphic.

We needed some metal screens and a front gate in the landscaping for security so we have created some laser cut steel panels each being a part of the New York map but externally we have used the Red Brick Road which will tie with the bronze fascia panels.