Ballast Point House by Emili Fox, Fox Johnston
A clever design for multigenerational living proved prescient, creating a home that is both flexible and sustainable.
As most of the world’s population finds itself in varying degrees of lockdown, separated from family and loved ones for an indefinite period, many of us are vowing to spend more quality time with our ageing parents or children we don’t see often enough – as soon as governments say we can.
Long before the current pandemic took hold, architect Emili Fox set out to design the perfect home for her young family with multigenerational living in mind, so she could care for her parents when they are older and know they are close by.
She lived with her husband and two young children for four long years in a near-derelict two-bedroom house on a 260sq m block where the new home she was designing would be built.
“It was a long period to be living in such an unhealthy environment,” says Fox, co-director of Sydney-based architectural practice Fox Johnston.
“The strangest thing was the misunderstanding of the external environment and how you could be sitting in the dark indoors, rugged up, and suddenly go outside to see it’s a sunny day. The kids shared a room and didn’t have a window.”
It’s no wonder, then, that one of Fox’s priorities for the new design – Ballast Point House – was to get as much northern light as possible into the south-facing site.
She wanted the home to be a testing ground for many things: multigenerational living on different levels; the use of sustainable methods, and Accoya and plywood timbers; maintenance-free design; and with the interiors, having “a bit more fun with colour … finding a colour scheme that was bold and calming at the same time.”
The steep, sloping site has access from two streets, which Fox used to her advantage by designing a self-contained, dual-key accommodation suite and garage on the lower two levels that formed apodium for the two-level house above. With separate access from the secondary street below, the quarters on the lower levels can either be open to the main house upstairs or locked for completely independent living.
Fox lives with her husband and kids on the ground and upper floor, with the apartment below reserved for her parents or family guests.
“Pre-Covid, my parents were staying in the self-contained apartment,” she says. “But the independent unit is being used by family friends currently. My parents plan on living there in the future and that’s why we have allowed the provision for a lift.”
The design gives as much connection or separation as we all need, says Fox, though her husband joked at first that she’d designed a hotel. She says he now realises how well the arrangement works.
Fox is a firm believer in sustainability and says it should be “the basis and core of all designs now”. Solar panels with battery storage equip the house to be 92 per cent off the grid. Rainwater is harvested in tanks, with grey water recycled for irrigation. Ceiling fans and operable glazing help moderate indoor air temperature. Sliding cedar screens and wide roof overhangs on the top level protect glazed facades. It has hydronic in-slab floor heating and energy-efficient, low-emissivity window glazing.
“The house is designed to work in the hot summer months by closing it down during the day, and opening it up again once the temperature outside starts to fall,” she says. Fox says she finds it strange that people tend to open up their houses when it’s really hot, creating the need for airconditioning.
The material palette is robust, refined and maintenance free: the downstairs areas feature recycled bricks, both raw and painted, and exposed concrete floors and ceilings. Joinery throughout is a pale plywood, and the window and door frames are a blonde Accoya wood that’s sustainably sourced.
The use of raw, harsh concrete is balanced out by the softer and warmer timbers. The use of stone and rumbled brass in the bathrooms further reflect the human interaction with nature and time.
Upstairs, there is a softer palette, with wainscot walls and a faceted ceiling painted in a duck egg blue, with carpets of deep indigo.
Creating garden connections was also central to the interior planning. The main living level flows easily from the front walled courtyard to the living room, past a central garden light well and out to a balcony facing the harbour and the city.
“I find that gardens bring a sense of calm,” Fox says. “They are really good for my wellbeing, beautiful to look at, and have so many health benefits. They also blur the boundaries of indoors and outdoors and make the space feel bigger. The little courtyard, although small in size, can be seen from everywhere in the house and makes us happy.”
With her family well and truly settled in, she says her favourite place in the house is the built-in deep daybed off the kitchen, from where she likes to look out onto the water with a book in hand.