DALGETY STREET | EAST FREMANTLE

The M&T House is a new build on an old duplex site located in a beautiful tree-lined street in East Fremantle’s heritage area. Due to the old subdivision the site was left with an 8.4m front area, followed by a narrow middle section before finally expanding out at the rear. Arklen collaborated with Darklight Design to find a solution for a single-story family home that had all the aspects of a modern, solar passive home.

The solution was to create a series of courtyards that allowed for pockets of natural light and greenery to permeate the house. A long passage connects the front bedrooms to the rear living areas, with the internal courtyards providing visual appeal, natural light and breezes to cool down the home. High windows allowed for additional northern sun to filter into southern rooms and create visually appealing patterns on the walls. The rear of the lot is slightly wider than the front and the design focus was on utilizing northern sun patterns to light the core living areas and external spaces.

In a suburb that mainly has wide street frontages, the unusual block faced complex issues with the local council planning policies. A single garage is pushed back from the street front, allowing for a secondary car bay and integrated vehicle gate into the building facade. Staggered boundary wall structures were used, where possible, to maximize the useable area of the lot until it widens at the rear.

A modern take on a traditional saw-tooth roof provided a dominant structure on the small footprint visible from the street. Layered into the building were the traditional materials like recycled brick, concrete and metal cladding which created a strong contrast to the landscaping.

2019 - HIA Perth Housing Awards