James Hardie has partnered with architecture practice Retallack Thompson to reimagine the Australian home using a new innovation – Hardie Fine Texture Cladding and its supporting range of corner and junction accessories.
Sydney architects Jemima Retallack and Mitchell Thompson were challenged to explore the material and spatial possibilities of Hardie Fine Texture Cladding. The result is Corner House, a conceptual extension of a traditional Federation-era brick bungalow in a typical inner-city Sydney suburb, and a vision that underscores the brand’s ambition to create exceptional cladding solutions for design savvy homeowners.
Embracing distinctive textures, sweeping scale and every inch of space available, Corner House showcases the design potential and impact of using a singular cladding material across the entirety of the extension, creating a new perimeter for the site, reclaiming the edges and underutilized areas of the property as part of the home. With an L-shaped backyard extension paired with a central courtyard garden, Hardie Fine Texture Cladding is proposed to wrap the contemporary living room and galley kitchen as well as establish the perimeter fence. The concept gives a unified expression to both the house and garden wall, suggesting that the interior and exterior realms both contribute to making meaningful living spaces.
“Our ambition was to create something distinctive that suggests a way we could live in a casual way with an intimate connection to the garden,” says Jemima. “The idea of a perimeter wall containing the whole site allows the building and fence to merge, so it suggests the garden might be a place you can spend time in, as much as inside.”
Retallack Thompson treat the garden as a “room” rather than an outdoor space. The scale and privacy of the courtyard garden encourages lively activity and its nature-focused view creates a casual outdoor gathering area.
“The arrival courtyard would act as a cloistered informal garden space that you arrive into via a pathway down the side of the house,” adds Jemima. “We imagine that there’s a park around the corner and people are coming and going and there’s an engagement via the fence with the street and neighbourhood.”
The idea of living in a garden influenced the colour choice for Hardie Fine Texture Cladding on Corner House, with a matt paint in soft grey-green proposed. The natural colour evokes an Australian setting, even in an inner-city suburb. The use of grey-green is also a nod to the vestige eucalypts that characterize many Australian backyards. The singular use of the pre-textured fibre cement cladding showcases its texture and clean lines, while highlighting one of the key design concepts – a bigger awareness of the natural world.
“The cladding has a transcendent quality. It is receptive to changing light across its surface. It darkens with shadows cast by foliage and lightens towards the sky,” explains Jemima.
At close range, the pre-textured finish of Hardie Fine Texture Cladding invites touch, while not visually overwhelming adjacent building materials such as brick.
To minimize waste, Corner House was designed to utilize whole cladding panels. The dimensions of the panels enabled Retallack Thompson to work on a grander scale and also determined the sizes of windows and openings. The large exterior of the extension doubles as a garden wall and features an operable screen, which was enabled by the larger 3600 mm panel size. The living room is sized at two panels high with a monumental corner window, proposed at two panels wide. Labour costs are minimized during construction with only two tradespeople required to lift the cladding panels into place.
“We know it is important to consider how to manage the efficiency and cost of construction. Anything that can expedite that process is good for everyone,” adds Mitchell.
The subtle expression of vertical joints in Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding is designed to bring a legibility of scale and visual rhythm to the architectural form.
“In the past, we have adopted a board-and-batten strategy because we knew it produced a neat detail. In this case, the shiplap joint would give a clean shadow line and there’s no PVC filler,” says Jemima.
The new and architecturally designed slimline corner accessories were created to achieve a mitred corner and create a crisp edge where two panels meet at 90 degrees. The innovation and robust nature of Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding means an architectural level of detail and finish can be achieved on any Australian home or backyard extension.
“The product creates an honest outcome with a material that Australian builders are really familiar with. In our experience when construction is made simple, and when care is taken with the material, it is possible to create something really beautiful,” says Mitchell.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
