Gantry House is the major overhaul of a sweet weatherboard cottage into an indoor-outdoor/house/warehouse/workshop for a family to enjoy doing and collecting of all sorts. While maintaining its modest cottage appearance on the street, GantryHouse expands into its backyard with airy, sunny, open trussed living spaces –robust and comfy, just like its family.

As one of the clients is a builder, there was huge flexibility to re-consider and evolve many ideas and details on-site during construction – which was a blessing and a curse! Also, a builder’s own house is the last project in line with all other clients’ projects. As a result, work happened in fits and starts over a long construction period of 2+ years. The above factors required us to think fast on our feet but allowed continual tweaking throughout the build to tailor the house to the family. 

Gantry House is designed to be a house/warehouse/workshop for the family to enjoy doing and collecting of all sorts – pot plants, toys and dogs, art, food, cooking, and op-shop treasures. All the shared activities of the house are open to each other but gently screened so the family can have their own spaces and yet still be together.

The construction of the house itself is also a source of enjoyment as its revealed structure, raw materials, exposed fixings, and other virtuoso construction details demonstrate the skills of all the people who built it -including the family themselves - and their highly skilled tradie friends.

As the client was a builder, they saw their house as an opportunity to be adventurous and ambitious in design and construction. The client's exceptional skills are evident everywhere along with the fine craftsmanship of his trades.

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