Making Historic Connections

2020

This project really demonstrates the way Wandoo honours and enjoys working with the character inherent in both the person and place. A whole lot of history, collections and memories were connected open, expansive roofing with unique carpentry bringing together three different buildings around a shared verandah. The project aimed to enhance, not erase the texture of the history. Scroll past images for more text.

The owner lives in a weatherboard house built  circa 1910, a gracious old place with verandahs. To the south a sleepout, and to the west a garden flanked on two sides with other outbuildings, one of which was a Telstra bush exchange. The client was a Telstra linesman and when this tiny, original artefact of the wheatbelt was decommissioned, he had it transported into his backyard.

The project included moving this small building, corrugated iron, stumps, walls, flooring and all, just a couple of metres toward the house, and then connecting it, the house, and the old verandah on the entry side (where the ute comes down the driveway) with a very high covered structure to both shade and protect. Height was gained by connecting at the low point of the existing verandah but then a butterfly junction (where a roof turns upward) extends it. The owner is a community-minded person who has worked in museums and owns a veritable museum of books and artefacts himself. In many ways this project brought together an archive of built forms.

There was an interesting and deliberate use of a variety of textures and recycled materials.

The tiny south sleepout was given a new exterior in corrugated iron, creating a small amount of additional interior space.

The design brief was that the roof wasn’t meant to be too much of a thing in itself. It was a utilitarian project full of character, now hosting many a chat on the quaint new north-facing concrete porch with a wall somehow romantic with remnants of paint-peeled corrugated iron. The build celebrates and connects raw, authentic vernacular, community and history.