As the real estate market in Melbourne, Australia, shuddered and house prices soared in 2017, Chris Calleja and Joy Suemag tried to find a bigger home for their young family.
“Real estate was hot, so you had to be brave and bid at auction,” says Mr Calleja, 47, who works in finance at the Ford Motor Company. “You go to all these places and lose, lose, lose.”
So when he and Mrs Suemag, also 47 and a marketing and sales professional at Ford, found a 1950s house in the Melbourne suburb of Alphington that they liked for its proximity to work, school, shops and restaurants, they hesitated they don’t. – although it was far from perfect.
“It was run down and it would have been cheaper to demolish than to refurbish,” said Mr Calleja. “We said, ‘Let’s buy it and tear it down.'”
At least, that was the plan. After striking a deal to buy the home for 1.7 million Australian dollars (about $1.1 million), they and their children — Mali, now 11, and Mark, 9 — moved in temporarily and began looking for an architect.
Once they unpacked, they immediately noticed one major problem, aside from the poor insulation and the possums living on the roof: the primary living areas at the back of the house and backyard were dark, while the front of the house was all got sun. day long.
“We wanted to have a lot of light, and in Australia that means a lot of northern sun,” Calleja said. “But if you have a north-facing street frontage and want all your windows there, you have concerns about privacy.”
Creating a courtyard was one possible solution. The pair searched online and found FIGR, a Melbourne-based architecture studio that had recently designed a striking courtyard house nearby.
When Adi Atic and Michael Artemenko, the founders of FIGR, visited the 0.16 hectare site, they agreed that it would help to build a house with a courtyard. But they also thought they could do better than simply replace the old house with a new one. Looking at how the backyard was enclosed by other houses, Mr Artemenko said, the architects wondered, “Why don’t we turn this upside down and do the front yard as a backyard?”
By pushing the new house back as far as the lot line requirement would allow, they were able to create a more generous, light-filled garden in the front. But privacy would still be an issue, and neither the owners nor their architects wanted to put up a large fence.
It was then that Mr. Atic and Mr. Artemenko remembered learning in architecture school about the concept of a ha-ha: a sunken fence used in 18th-century landscapes that was hidden from view. “Basically, it looks like a ditch, and it prevented livestock from entering the yard,” said Mr. Atic.
The architects also turned this idea on its head: Instead of digging a trench, they would build a landscaped earth mound near the sidewalk, blocking sight lines from the street and creating a garden-like feel to the yard.
For the home, they designed a 2,750-square-foot, single-story structure that wraps around a central courtyard in a circle with oversized glass doors that open entire walls to the outside. For the cladding, they chose sleek white brick and charred silver ash that run from the outside in, enhancing the sense of indoor-outdoor living.
Once plans were set, the family moved into a rental down the street as demolition of the old home and construction of the new began in July 2020. They had already ordered most of their building materials at the start of the pandemic, before supply-chain issues snapped at other construction projects, so their new home was completed by November 2021 at a cost of around A$1.5 million (approximately $990,000) .
The kitchen, dining area and living room are at the front of the house and benefit from the northern lights and views of the extended front garden. In the middle of the house on one side of the courtyard are two bedrooms for the children and on the other side a home office. The master bedroom is at the back along with an additional sitting room and gym; all have a view of the backyard, where the old backyard used to be.
“Being in this property makes you feel very secluded; you feel like you’re in the countryside,’ Mr Atic said. “You see green everywhere, even though you are five minutes from the city.”
The windows around the courtyard help the family stay connected. “We can see the kids from the kitchen, through the courtyard,” Mrs. Suemag said, so they wouldn’t have to shout to find each other. “That’s probably my favorite thing.”
The redesigned front yard has also been embraced by the family – including their golden Labrador, Mellow, who keeps her distance from the earthen mound. “She’s not climbing the ha-ha,” Mr. Calleja said. “She did once, when it was being built, but we arranged the boulders so she couldn’t.”
Much like the 18th century ha-ha who kept farm animals where they were supposed to be, this 21st century version has proven useful for keeping a city pet in check. “It does its job,” said Mr. Calleja.
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