Laneway House
Laneway House by Jon Jacka Architects won both the 2018 Hugh and Eva Buhrich Award and 2018 Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award, the highest accolades of the Australian Institute of Architects at state and national levels for alterations and additions to houses.
The project reimagines the urban form of Newtown, Sydney for social interaction. It’s a prototype for the locality and for similar urban areas defined by terrace houses and row houses. It reorients the house to the laneway – a place full of potential. The “back” becomes the new “front.” The laneway is redefined as a pedestrian thoroughfare, a shared backyard, an outdoor room, a playground fostering chance encounters with both neighbours and passers by.
Jury Citation (Australian Institute of Architects, 2018) -
Jon Jacka Architects invert the private sensibility of the traditional semi-detached house, to invent a new typology: the laneway house, a series of social spaces reoriented to maximise the old subdivision pattern for social interaction. Jacka makes an argument on the city and holds a position on the housing typology. He addresses an urban condition with integrity, intuition and innovation by activating the laneway.
Located in the backstreets of Newtown, the existing single-storey early 20th century semi seems apparently un-modified. Familiar entry and circulation patterns are retained along the party wall, interrupted by a central courtyard – a skilful insertion behind the front bedrooms providing an intensely private space.
Both bathrooms are tucked away in unlikely spaces. Most notably the children’s bathroom fills the cracks of the existing passageway that divides the house from its neighbour – cleverly re-appropriating space.
By inhabiting the laneway, shifting the backyard to the middle and lifting the landscape to the roof, it counters domestic isolation from street life. Family life is thrust in full view on the laneway threshold, with an operable and layered timber screen providing intimacy and engagement with the street.
Converting the rear lane to a social space, offering a propagation of its own pattern well beyond this site, Laneway House questions the use of contemporary public space and promotes chance encounters, re-appropriation of space, unlikely juxtapositions, and user adaptation. It is a clear vision for how we could live in densely populated areas.
Awards
2018 Hugh and Eva Buhrich Award (Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter)
2018 Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award (Australian Institute of Architects National)
Links
Green Magazine - Talking Point (Rebecca Gross, Issue 65)
Australian Institute of Architects - Rigour and reimagining: winners shine at 2018 National Architecture Awards (1 November 2018), 2018 NSW Architecture Award winners announced (7 July 2018), 2018 NSW Architecture Awards Catalogue (July 2018)
Jon Jacka Architects
Project Architect, Lead Consultant, Interior and fitout design (Team - Jon Jacka, Li Li Chan, Kris Rosen, Simon Hubert. Client - Skye & David Palethorpe. Contractor - Simon Robertson)
Photography - Jon Jacka