House Fitzgerald

14 years in the MAKING:

And that is the most apt description of what became a critical part of

one’s practice and everyday thought. An exploration of materials and

craft resulted in a project of which every component was designed,

refined and manufactured by hand.

With a client passionate about detail, quality and mid-century modern

furniture and design it was quite a challenge in 2010, when we started

the project. With project number 2010-01 it became a labour of love with

many detail iterations and refinements over the 14 year period it took to

get the building to the stage where we can actually predict a completion

date. The building is a result of close collaboration between various

craftsman and designers. Finding harmony in the passage of time and

knowledge gained through parallel project exploration.

Apart from the sculptural, Heideggerian qualities and expressionist

character, the conceptual and formal exploration led to a building which

is built within the city fabric; thus the positioning of the structure closer

to the street but elevated to be part of the city, but to also create privacy

away from the city. Essentially an L-shaped building, the building

inhabits the site to realise the entire site’s latent potential of becoming

a home with integrated indoor-outdoor spaces. Tiered courtyards form

outdoor rooms with the landscape changing as it terraces down from the

intimate “Fairy Garden” to a “Mediterranean” courtyard and eventually

ending on street level in a formal foraging space. Each with a distinct

relationship to the building which has been designed to activate the site

as a HOME.