Like most older, heritage homes, this home in Adelaide was full of charm but wasn't exactly light-filled and certainly didn't have a great connection to the outdoors. That's what makes LVL/ by PLY Architecture such a great complement to the original home...
In many ways, the new pavilion is the opposite to the original home. Bathed in natural light and with a seamless connection to the outdoors, the addition is the perfect modern living space. Built with light coloured honed blockwork, it also fits right in with the original home's stonework and rendered details. The blockwork, with alternating courses of narrow and wide blocks, is also a modern take on the rich detailing found in the original home.
The original home has become the quiet zone, with bedrooms, bathrooms and a retreat. Separated from the original home by a glazed link. The link gives both old and new a bit of space to breathe, quite literally, by maximising ventilation with the help of louvre windows. The space between old and new also lets natural light into the two new bathrooms as well as the pavilion via clerestory windows.
As soon as you open the front door, you're drawn through the house towards the light at the end of the hall.
Once you arrive in the new pavilion, the space dissolves into the outdoors. There's a pool just outside the window and bouncing rippling light into the living area and sliding glass doors which stack back to open the whole space onto the outdoor living area.
The minimal pavilion, in shades of monochrome, focuses the eye outdoors to the pool and sky, visually expanding the home.
The lines of the blockwork are carried through as a datum in the pavilion, informing the lines in the kitchen cabinetry, for example, creating a rhythm and a subtle balance throughout the space.
This clever addition is almost the opposite to the original home but, as they say, opposites attract; old and new are the perfect complements to each other in this case!
