D House

Architect/Firm: Donovan Hill Architects – Brian Donovan and Timothy Hill

Location: 215A Harcourt St, New Farm, QLD, Australia

“The building has a reticent form and effectively appropriates the gabled roofscapes of neighbouring houses behind to provide domestic emblematic signals to the street.The greater issue of context is not concerned with the picturesque or emblematic but rather with the streetside potential of the building: its capacity to add to the public life of the street, rather than be focused just on the interior life of the building. It is the continuity of the street that needs to be reinforced: the houses are subordinate to it.”
– UME Magazine 15: p10, 2002

Plan

Entrance Walkway

Living/Dining Room

Entrance Terrace

Living/Dining Room

“Walls”

Front Door

Bedroom

Threshold Detail

Window Treatment

D House at Night

Overview

tran⋅si⋅tion: movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; a passage from one scene to another by sound effects, music, etc., as in a television program, theatrical production, or the like. (Source: Dictionary.com)

Similarly, Donovan Hill Architects centered the design of their building on the premise that this house would focus on transitions – between one space and another. D House is planned in such a way to reflect and enhance the experience of the relationships between the public street and the private living quarters, separated by a transitional common area and open-air terraces. This continuing theme of “openness” links the interior rooms of the building to the naturalistic experience of the unique Australian public domain.

The house’s design constantly makes references to itself and its surroundings, by use of linear progressions, repeated forms, progressions of time and space, and signifying materials to blur the lines between the interior and exterior; public and private space. A focus on these transitions defines D House as a project that successfully influences the “public life of the street” from the events within the “interior life of the building.”

Throughout the house, there are two types of transitions:

–       subtle, gradual transitions (gradient)

–       or sudden, marked transitions

To represent the transition from public to private space, Donovan Hill Architects make use of these two transition methods to delineate the spaces within and “without” the walls of D House. It is this play on transition that makes the house uniquely interesting.

Sources:

Beck, H (ed). “Donovan Hill – D House.” UME 15 (2002): 10-19.

Freeland, J.M. Architecture in Australia: A History. Melbourne, Australia: F.W. Chesire Publishing Pty Ltd., 1968.

Jackson, Davina. Next Wave: New Australian Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.

Jackson, Davina, and Chris Johnson. Australian Architecture Now. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2000.

Taylor, Jennifer. Australian Architecture Since 1960. Melbourne, Australia: The Law Book Company Ltd., 1986.