Echidna Studio is a new ancillary extension to a family home in Middle Park. The brief involved updating a tired old brick garage that was too small for a car and too dark to inhabit. The new design converted the space into an independent studio, with a home office, a lofted day bed and sleeping area, additional storage, and a small bathroom.
The studio is used daily as a home office, but also serves as a separate living area for visitors and adult children returning home. A key design concept was to create a relationship with the existing main house that can be private but also feel connected. This is expressed through the permeable Northern façade, which uses perforations to obscure direct visual links, while glowing with the light behind to show someone is home and inhabiting the space.
The layers of perforations continue internally and are applied to a plywood ‘box’ placed within the lofted space. This box houses the services and wet areas below, with a dynamic sleeping area and daybed above. Skylights and windows have been carefully placed to transfer sunlight through the perforations in different patterns throughout the year.
The North-east facade of the compact, well-insulated building envelope, is clad with adjustable perforated panels to open up and embrace the winter sun, then close to create summer shade. The openings on three sides are carefully placed to capture prevailing breezes, while an openable skylight above lofted area to purge heat in summer
The landscape design ties the two buildings together with paved stepping stones and an abundance of ground cover. The curated plant selection brings a colour balance to the black-and-white building materials, and will be an important cooling element as it becomes more established over time.
