Centripetal - Panovscott

Centripetal
Terrace House
Sydney, Australia
panovscott
© 2015, panovscott Architects.
All rights are reserved. No part may be reproduced without permission.
The authors have endeavoured to contact all relevant copyright holders prior to publication. Should an error
have occurred please notify the authors so subsequent editions can be rectified.
ISBN 978-0-9924889-5-6
Photographs by Brett Boardman and panovscott
Typeset in Twentieth Century, which was designed by Sol Hess in 1937.
For further information please visit panovscott.com.au
This project is the radical reconfiguration of a narrow Sydney terrace house for a mother
and her son. It is a third project in our ongoing preoccupation with inner city row houses and
furthers our research within the type.
The northernmost of 5 in the terrace, the existing house was built from a pattern in 1896.
As we found it, the pleasingly proportioned and fenestrated street facade was in good
condition. Unfortunately the interior was not similarly preserved. The living rooms were
arranged as an isolated enfilade, with a series of elements demarcating the individual
rooms; a strange parabolic arch, a steep rickety stair, walls with needless doors, and a little
family bathroom. The resulting spaces had a strong impact on the way our client and her
young son lived. Throughout the day the two could only be in close proximity within each of
the small rooms, or the small associated front and back gardens. There was no ability for
more nuanced spatial relationships to develop. Such relationships nurturing the burgeoning
independence which is central to the growth of any young child. It could be said that if the
home is a manner for a family to come together comfortably, it must conversely allow each
member to be comfortably individual, alone within the collective.
This kind of collective claustrophobia within the existing house was heightened by its radically
small size. Only a touch over 3.6 metres in width, the internal spaces were further reduced by
meager illumination - the result of ineffectual windows which in turn inhibited any kind of air
movement and so connection to the greater environment.
Our astute client understood this of her family and the existing house, and so asked us
to rehabilitate the structure to enable a better way of life. Thus tasked, our initial design
discussions suggested the internal environment of the house be rearranged around
an absence. This void space would be of non-defined use, enable both light and air into
the centre of the plan and be subsumed moment by moment into the inhabitation of the
surrounding spaces.
A few years earlier we had spent some time in the Anhui province of China, our intent being
to see the magnificent sculptural landscape of Huangshan. Just prior to our ascent, we spent
a day wandering the narrow paths of the village of Chengkan. Seemingly alone amongst
the miraculously preserved domestic architecture, we spent a quiet moment in Yan Yi Tang or
Swallow’s Wing Hall, the residence of a wealthy Huizhou merchant named Wang Ganchen.
There in the mountains was an ancient home, as densely urban as you would like, inward
looking with a rectangular courtyard open to the space of the house at the ground level and
above narrowing as it penetrated the upper floor and roof. This tianjing or skywell brought a
limited vista of the sky into the house but its innate beauty as architecture was the manner in
which it animated the public domain of the home. Both environmentally, with the wonderfully
mutable quality of light and air, and as a manifestation of the social order within.
Utilising the spatial characteristic of the tianjing, combined with contemporary construction
techniques and expectations of comfort, our design evolved into a consideration of the room
and the nature of its definition. Our discussions isolated the experiential poverty of open
plan space and so living. The experience of the existing house demonstrated the frustrations
of isolated rooms. Balancing as such between those extremes, we developed a number of
strategies in which the room could be, and not quite be, at any given time.
On the ground where the connection to the street and garden is enabled, where the family
most often come together, and where the guest is received, we have defined the rooms most
enigmatically. By subduing the architectural elements which traditionally define space, our
intent was simply for light qualities to demarcate. To enable a room defined by light.
It has worked beautifully, the varying nature of natural light enables the room to be more
strongly or ephemerally defined. When offered a soft sky on a cloudy day, the light spreads
to fill the space, and conversely becomes more finite in brighter skies. At night the relationship
inverts with the room defined via a pool of darkness, around which brighter rooms are
arranged.
Above, the rooms are more private and so narrowly defined. Here our intent has been to
enable inhabitation of the edge and the ability to bodily transform the room demarcation.
Windows slide, solid hatches hinge, screens provide veiled vantages and partial silhouettes, a
door is oversized becoming a pivoting wall, a seat is offered between stair landings.
The manner in which spaces are made and the specific way in which they are inhabited can
be seen as central to this project. This idea is one of room making, though in this instance,
the mechanisms by which a room is traditionally made are eschewed for more transitory or
enigmatic boundary definitions.
We call this project Centripetal, meaning to seek the centre.
Parts of a whole
Garden
What we do not do is sometimes more meaningful than what we do. In the garden we
sketched a finely crafted intervention which would reinvigorate the moment of homecoming.
But in the end our hand is much more laconic. As such the pattern is retained, a manner of
entry shared amongst all of the terraces and over many combined years.
Entry
A few steps up from the street and just within the door is a place for shoes and the decorum
of reception and leaving. Made with white limewashed 19mm AC interior grade hoop pine, it
is conceived as the miniaturisation of a foyer. In that way it is not so much like the Japanese
genkan where behavior is closely prescribed, ritualised, and so the requisite space can be
minimised. Here our intent is to allow the act of entry and exit to occur in all its variability
within a space that is both small and complex.
We constructed a delicate connection with the kitchen beyond, but shielded. A hidden alcove
and power supply allows keys, coins, phones and those things collected to be accessible from
both spaces. A low shoe shelf doubles as a perch. A cupboard is concealed just further along
for coats, umbrellas and school bags. The foyer is terminated by an unadorned white wall
perpendicular to the path of travel which allows a glimpse of the spaces ahead, an ongoing
experiment of ours in the perception of entry. Movement along the foyer space allows the
shifting perspective to open the view to the house beyond. Shortly before the white wall the
visitor turns 90 degrees and understands the width of the house as an interior space for the
first time; its radical narrowness.
We remember Sean Godsell’s story about his first house, so small that he sacrificed a large
proportion of the floor area to enable a visitor to traverse the length of the site, from front
to back before encountering the first room of the house. Though we imagine the momentary
frustration of rushing home to the toilet, or carrying the shopping, we understand and
admire this arrangement of space as a manifestation of the exultation of experience. It is an
example for us of how the heightened experience of homecoming can be found only through
eschewing certain aspects of comfort. In our conversations with clients we find ourselves
discussing such small sacrifices of convenience. How they are often necessary to allow a
richer manner of habitation. How if carefully considered and accepted this can enable the
everyday to approach the sacred.
The floor is 85mm wide dressed Blackbutt boards, secret nailed, with a burnished Synteko
natural oil finish. These hold the light wonderfully, offering a deep, subtly variegated texture
and playing a large part in defining the mood of the entry and spaces beyond.
Kitchen
The kitchen is also faced with limed hoop pine, the bench Corian with an undermount white
ceramic Villeroy & Boch Subway XU sink and Astra Walker kitchen mixer. We’ve brought the
vertical ply panels right up to conceal the bench edge making for an elegant line and a more
ergonomic handle to the concealed storage and appliances below. There are few overhead
cupboards, instead an appliance cupboard in white laminate holds assorted accoutrements
which slide out as the benchtop extends inwards. The oven is 600mm, the gas cooktop
900mm, both Miele. The rangehood is Baumatic 75cm, undermount, concealed behind a
joinery panel. The fridge is patriotically Fisher & Paykel and integrated into the joinery
with a concealed splay-cut handle, similarly the dishdrawer. The wonderfully rudimentary
splashback is white laminate to match the adjacent wall (commodity never to be forgotten
amongst the firmness and delight). The kickboard is locally sourced Blackbutt, the material of
the floor. Above, the track light is white Trio with Tubo 15 track spots from Opal Lighting.
Dining
The vintage teak and oak dining table is the Model No 281 made by Fredericia and
designed by Borg Mogensen, the teak and upholstered dining chairs are by HW Klein, both
from Vampt. The small bench alcove allows C or a visitor to stand or sit against the wall and
converse with K at the kitchen bench - a small gesture that enables the galley shaped kitchen
to become more social. That and the open ends connecting to the living spaces of the house
beyond, and the life of the street in the other direction.
Laundry
Located within the white laminate panelised wall that conceals the stair, two panels hinge
outwards to reveal the laundry clad in unfinished compressed fibre cement sheeting. Further
panels open to exploit even the smallest space under the stairs and within the thickness of the
walls surrounding it.
Stair 1
The materiality is a continuation of the floor. Lapping the vertical surface up in front of the
horizontal, the view of the stair on approach is simplified. Whilst descending, the 19mm edge
of the vertical board on the horizontal surface offers a subtle colour differentiation to enable
a more visible step edge. There is no skirting on the stair, the wall finish is applied prior to the
floor and a small gap left unadorned which allows for the expansion and contraction of the
timber. The width of the stair is generous at its base. The first riser protrudes into the dining
space and two steps up, the landing offers an informal seat. Within the stair the light levels
are slightly reduced to imply privacy and hence discourage unsolicited entry, though once
within, the natural light in the hall above is greater, allowing ease of movement.
Light court
Back at ground level and beyond the stair, the ceiling stops and a space opens through the
upper levels to the sky. A sky space as viewed. This space in turn connects the rooms within
the three levels of the house.
WC
90x45 dressed and painted oregon battens draw the eye upwards towards the sky. The
last two battens form the handle of a large pivoting wall panel that provides access to the
wetroom and toilet. The floor is smooth finished concrete, the walls share this low grey-mottled
sheen being large adhesive-fixed panels of compressed fibre cement. The shower and
tapware is Astra Walker, and the combined basin and wc is Caroma Profile 5. The large door
mechanism is a cost effective Dorma pivot system that allows the door to swing both inwards
and out in case of an emergency within. Heavy duty rubber seals around the door inhibit
both water and sound migration.
Living
The coffee table is the FLY Coffee Table by SPACE Copenhagen in white oil/Carrara marble
from Great Dane Furniture, as is the lounge which is the enigmatically named Australia
Sofa, designed by Illum Wikkelso, a great example of Danish mid century design. The few
downlights used here and throughout are a narrow flange LED Audrey Tilt by Boaz. The
joinery item (which is almost carpentry) is by Michael Refalo; it conceals the tv and stereo
system and references a number of other elements in the house. Curtains are open weave on
an s-fold track affixed to the splayed white painted timber beam which stabilises the end
wall. In front of the curtain a narrow slot skylight brings the western light into the space just
behind the wall. This subtle balance of light ameliorates contrast between inside and out,
hence alleviating glare in the western most room of the house. The low profile biparting doors
slide back against the adjacent wall externally to disappear completely from within. The
eaves gutter, profiled to allow an elegant weir edge, is folded plate steel and supports the
door track system. The proportioning and size of the openings allow K & C to live right at the
edge of the living space in comfort and privacy, whilst still maintaining a strong connection to
the play of light, the breeze, the scent of the garden beyond.
Bedroom
Above, the front room and balcony overlooking the street have been preserved. A new robe
inserted, the floor renewed, and the door hardware replaced in kind, so that the character
of the space is retained. This is the only area in the transformed house not immediately
connected to the central absence, and so offers a place of refuge from the life of the house.
Bathroom
This room holds the most lovely silvery light, somehow managing to be warm and cool at
the same time. We have been very careful to craft surfaces that absorb the light, limiting
reflection to the far wall. The singular material, panels of compressed fibre cement, is the
most rudimentary of building materials (used in almost every bathroom as the substrate
behind the waterproofing and finishing tiles) but has been installed with the care one
would expect of the finest of stone. Concealed behind these panels are the plumbing and
exhaust risers, the toilet cistern, the hot water heater, and lots of storage. The requisite
mirror is relegated to the rear wall. It covers the whole wall and employs the old technique
of doubling space visually and augmenting a meagre unidirectional light source. Here we
utilised Astra Walker tapware, the Duravit Vero wall hung vanity and integrated towel
rail, the Duravit Architec wall mounted wc with concealed cistern, a minimal frameless glass
shower screen, Vincent Buda stainless grate drain, and a Kaldewei Saniform Deep bath.
Beyond the bath is a ledge and three operable hatches on Whitco stainless steel friction
stays which baffle the light from the court. They also provide visual and acoustic privacy to
the living below and to C’s room beyond. This bath is at the spatial heart of the house and
we had more than a few conversations about the power of observation and the observed as
it relates to Bentham’s Panopticon and in a more domestic context the boudoir at Adolf Loos’
Villa Muller. That said it would quite simply be a fantastic place to lie back with a book and
a glass of chardy, the sky above and the life of the house below.
Bridge
This space on the level above the ground we call the bridge, though conceived more as Ponte
Vecchio than some kind of purely trafficable infrastructure. It is made from dressed and
painted oregon - the soffit, the screen and the seat - and by the builder on site. Again this
is an example of a most rudimentary material elevated purely by intent. Able to be flexibly
inhabited, the space is an extension of C’s bedroom. Above, three sheets of glass allow light
to enter. At the lower edge, the glass cantilevers out to form a tiny overhang. Underneath,
three solid timber hatches with insect mesh allow a trickle of air to refresh the interior and
exhaust the hot air that would accumulate beneath the glass under solar loading. This concert
of elements will suck the cooler air from the lower parts of the house and gardens, thus
creating a gentle breeze through the centre of the house on even the hottest and stillest of
summer days.
Bedroom
C’s bedroom opens internally to the bridge with a generously wide pivoting door that is
rarely closed, whilst in the other direction the external doors slide back against the facade
to enable the room to be flooded with light, air and outlook. The opening retains the vertical
proportion of the original window it has replaced and its modification finds the delicate
balance between privacy from overlooking and the generosity an enlarged opening enables
of the small room. An assembly of simple joinery provides adequate furniture for the room –
a wardrobe, a bed and a set of display shelves for C to curate his collections.
Stair 2
Again narrowing, the bounding wall of the stair room is reduced to the thickness of a piece
of plywood, and the stair itself to only 640mm. There is a stark disparity between the width
of this stair, which leads to a single room, and the stair below, which leads from the more
public living rooms to this stair and the more private realm of the house. The disparity results
in a small gap where the structures overlap, allowing a sliver of light to drop between and
through the levels of the house.
Attic
Turning at the top of the stair brings a moment of incomprehension. Where the rest of the
house has been contained between the two long parallel boundary walls, here the vista
opens through a large corner window. Across the rooftops Botany Bay is visible, and the
distant aircraft of Sydney airport which so captivated C during the design process. On
entering the room, the shifting perspective reveals the corner as a chimera. A large mirrored
surface aligns to amplify the meagre width of the space, which is the physical termination
of the journey within the house. This room is for guests and for C as he grows to find a place
even further apart. For now it is laid out as a pretty cool model train room.
Critique
by Stuart Vokes & Aaron Peters
Negotiating the pageantry of a sunny North Bondi day is a memorable experience for the
visiting northern architect. On the occasion of our visit to the Centripetal House we found
ourselves racing through the throng from a prior appointment. We were met by Anita Panov
and Andrew Scott at the front gate and ushered across a narrow verandah. Having arrived
(albeit late) we were delighted to be led out of the mid-January heat and glare into an
intimate entry vestibule.
Almost immediately, a sense of calm descended and the sophistication of the spatial planning
became apparent. This miniature room gave us pause to compose our thoughts (and catch our
breath) while we attuned our senses to the unexpected generosity of the rooms before us.
A particular highlight of the building is the suggestiveness of the architecture. An occupant
is frequently reminded of the spaces located above or below. Glimpses into the partially
enclosed stair room and the visible protrusion of treads at the bottom of some flights hint
at the possibility of vertical movement, of unseen rooms beyond. The presence of light
streaming down from above excites curiosity as to the source of the illumination. The scent of
an evening meal being prepared is permitted to drift up through the building. The murmur
of conversation in the garden or the echoes of footsteps in the bedroom corridor announce
unseen events in distant parts of the building.
The Centripetal House is a renovation to a classic nineteenth-century Sydney terrace. We
began by discussing the provenance of the original building: how it might once have been
occupied and by whom.
It is here that the synergy of nineteenth- and twenty-first-century room planning becomes
palpable. The owner’s brief emphasized the importance of the relationship between herself
and her young son. The architects have nurtured this bond by developing a plan that
promotes mutual awareness. Both occupants can maintain a sense of one another without
sacrificing independence or privacy.
Conforming to the cultural conventions and social mores of the day, building designers of this
era championed propriety through formal reception rooms and treated the daily practices
of cooking, cleaning, sleeping and dressing as utilitarian acts to be sequestered away
from public view. Public and private spaces were expertly partitioned and clear thresholds
delineated indoor and outdoor spaces.
Significantly, the house also seeks to engage its broader context by arranging the kitchen
directly behind the historic front facade. The life of the street becomes a companion to
prosaic daily rituals such as making toast or loading groceries into the pantry. This simple
planning gesture is designed to remind the occupants of their relationship to the city and to
encourage contemplation of life beyond the day-to-day domestic existence.
In contrast to this conception of the private house, most contemporary Australians expect
their homes to express personal values, showcase their personality and provide means for
deriving comfort and pleasure through daily rituals. As a result, the open plan has largely
supplanted the cellular planning arrangements of yesteryear. The compelling connectedness
that has followed has brought with it photogenic volumes filled with light and air. Rooms fit
for furnishing with bold, individualistic pieces.
Often, the failure of a contemporary open-plan house can be found in its lack of discretion;
little is left to the imagination. Privacy is difficult to control and good order can be labourintensive to maintain. Striking the right balance is difficult to manage, but here, panovscott
has skilfully measured its interventions to offer generosity, arouse curiosity and excite
exploration, while maintaining the informality and ease expected of a contemporary
dwelling. The needs of both the household and the individual are met through a thoughtful
collection of interconnected rooms.
The revitalized Centripetal House draws on the best of both traditions. The owner and the
architects sought to revive the idea of nineteenth-century room-making while satisfying
contemporary twenty-first-century expectations for illumination, volumetric generosity and
social connectivity.
Each of the spaces in the building is enriched through its relationship with the spaces around
it. A central void drags natural light from rooftop glazing through the two lower levels of the
house. Surrounding rooms, such as the second-floor bathroom and “bridge,” profit from this
relationship by borrowing space and illumination from the void.
Tellingly, in a note to the architects sent shortly after moving into the house, the owner does
not dwell on luxurious materials or the convenience of appliances on offer. Rather, she
commends her architects for their contribution to the social life of her family and the spatial
quality of the new volumes. This is because, although the house is beautifully finished and
appointed, its principal virtue is the subtle complexity of the room-making.
The Centripetal House is a society of rooms where each individual can find a space of their
own in which to dwell.
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7m
Cuttings
Cuttings
1.
4.
I have few memories from deep in my childhood of those couple of weeks during which my
parents sent me to Sunday school. One detail however has remained vivid - that of the rock
which was rolled in front of the entrance to Jesus’ cave tomb. I remember being entirely
nonplussed about the death and the rising. But that rock. I was captivated to think about how
something so heavy could move and how that improbable action would so radically alter
the character of the space within. I distinctly remember ruminating on the feeling of being
entombed and the way in which the light would crack moonlike as the rock rolled away. In
hindsight the power of that rock to capture the imagination of a small boy makes complete
sense. What did I know of dying let alone miraculous resurrection? I did however know in my
tiny bones the revelation of weight. The miracle of those things which might be so heavy as to
be immovable, suddenly moving.
2.
Later, we stood in the picture room of John Soane’s magnificent mausoleum (tomb again!), a
tall intimate space. The walls lined with images including the descent of Hogarth’s Rake. A
hushed silence fell over those others gathered. A man with white gloves told us a story of one
narrative cycle, and then another. Whilst doing so he reached forward and hinged a wall
towards him, the space doubled in one direction. He turned and then pulled forward another,
and then another and the last. I wondered at the theatre of the space animated.
We found the deep orange earth walls and the palms one weekend as young students,
chasing the meandering line of the coast away from the city in our panel van. Those walls
gave little away, the strange intermittent horizontal projections causing much spurious
speculation. We remembered Leplastrier’s description of the mythical client as he tended
the grove in footy shorts and Georg Jensen glasses, and in turn the client’s description of
his architect, raising his hand and his eyes to say but why build a roof? With the palms you
already have one. Often we have paused to consider the majesty of that great corrugated
copper vault sliding back to reveal the fronds silhouetted against the sky.
5.
Monumentally ugly, crude and exciting, there is floating within the web a movie of the Prada
Transformer. Conceived by Rem Koolhaas in response to the patronage of Miuccia Prada,
this structure was a temporary pavilion installed in the grounds of the Gyeonghui Palace in
Seoul during the spring of 2009. It was a four sided shape cobbled together. Each shape
was a floor plan and each plan representing a specific manner of habitation. The first
was a hexagonal exhibition space, the second a rectangular cinema, the third enabled a
circular fashion show, whilst the remaining plan was a cruciform which accommodated an art
installation. To enable each plan/use the building was lifted by a concert of massive cranes
and rotated in mid air. The client patron noted at the time that the Transformer concept was
not for a generic space, but to be very specific, with all things separate in one building.
3.
6.
Closer to home we sat huddled on the peninsula and looked due south into the harbour, as
a yacht beat windward directly towards us, poised in the most extreme equilibrium. At that
moment - seemingly static - it suddenly pirouetted amongst the white caps and spinnaker
flapping, then set, was dragged up the harbour and from our view in moments. We imagined
the boat a few hours later in a deepwater cove as the sun set, those on board with a line in
the water and a drink in the hand whilst the last of the light echoed about the bay and the
sky deepened as black above as the water below.
Recently we have been doing some work in the park surrounding the Observatory citadel
in the centre and above the city of Sydney. Our time on site has allowed some reflection on
the occasional slow pirouette of these sentinel Cyclopes. Now operating solely as museum
artifacts within this seemingly forgotten part of the metropolis. They remind us that such
magnificent instruments, devised by us to see with ever greater precision, enable not only
the greater understanding of the specific thing observed, but perhaps more importantly a
wider realisation of things not yet understood. This could be thought of as the humility of an
explorer. So beautifully articulated by Steinbeck when he observed that people really need
sea-monsters in their personal oceans.... An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a
completely dreamless sleep.