Paradise Drive

HATZ Architects was awarded the Vision Award 2011 in the Residential Energy Efficiency category at the National Architecture Conference held on Friday 15 April. The Vision award is sponsored by Viridian CSR. Paradise Drive is a beach house located at the Bass Strait face of the Mornington Peninsula. High-end thermally toughened double glazing with low emmisivity coating was used to protect the interior from winter heat loss and summer heat gain. Photography by David Yeow.

Peninsula House

A proposed new residence located on an impressive beachside site - one and a half hours south of Melbourne. Adjacent to St Andrews Beach and the Mornington Peninsula national park, the location features ocean views and preserved coastal vegetation.

The peninsula house is a response to very particular site conditions and client requirements. Environmental, planning, topographical, visual, and climatic site conditions were mapped, analysed and integrated into a set of design constraints that responded to these dynamic conditions.

The house is organised as a 3-d spiral, forshortening a conventional linear arrangement and creating both internalised as well expansive views, allowing privacy, visual adjacency and a protected outdoor space typical of courtyard house typologies.

Views to the site delineate a set of controlled perspective lines that define the orientation and form ramping volumes.

Location: St Andrews Beach Type: Residential Beachside Residence Size: 280 sq m Status: Pending Construction Design: WSH Design Team: Steve Hatzellis, Owen West, Andrew Simspon, Stephan Bekhor, Nuno Gomes, Dennis Prior, Eugene An, Foong Chern Wong

Monash Architecture School

This project for Monash University is to house a new architecture department within the Faculty of Art and Design, due for commencement in 2008. The spaces comprise flexible design studios, academic and research offices, administration and meeting rooms, a CAD/CAM laboratory and a series of informal areas for students and staff.

The design developed as an exploration of pedagogical scenarios specific to the study of architecture. These scenarios, translated as varied sectional conditions, are inscribed in the circulation zones of the plan through a series of faceted walls that loft from one scenario to another.

Constructed of hard-wearing rubber sheet and bulletin-board for the display and presentation of student work, these walls also simultaneously function as bench seat, work bench, model stand or projection screen. Photos of the project's up-to-date progress is shown.

Location: Caulfield Campus, Melbourne
Type: Institutional Fitout
Size: 1200 sq m
Status: Under construction
Design: WSH
Design Team: Steve Hatzellis, Andrew Simpson, Owen West, Stephan Bekhor, Dennis Prior, Eugene An, Ellie Farrell, Olena Demyanenko
Collaborators: Dirk Anderson of UFO
Client: Monash University
Project Manager: Sylvia Hadjiantoniou
Advisors: Professor Andrew Benjamin and Karen Burns
Services: Murchie Consulting
Acoustics: Marshall Day
DDA: Blythe-Sanderson
Structural: T.D. & C.

Cape Liptrap

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up" - Pablo Picasso"

This project for a family coastal residence is located on a stunning site in eastern Victoria. The design is an investigation of how an idealised conception of "house" is transformed by its context and use. The site has extraordinary qualities: harsh prevailing winds of the roaring forties; sloping site; and sublime panoramic views from cape liptrap to wilson's promontory. The residence required maximum flexibility as a beach home that could accommodate varying sleeping needs - anything from a single guest to burgeoning family summer holidays.

The sectional character of the design adopts an idealised child-like profile of a gabled house as a point of departure. However this reading of the architecture is subverted by a reorientation of the plan.

The house twists to accommodate framed views and take advantage of the natural fall of the site, with two wings capturing significant views of the landscape to the east and west. These arms of the building are mediated by an ambiguous space that operates as provisional gallery, entry, veranda, storage, dining, lounging and circulation zone. This contested space engages more directly with the landscape and environment and accommodates shifting patterns of use.

Location: Type: Beach House Size: 160 sq m Status: Under Construction Design: WSH Design Team: Andrew Simspon, Owen West, Steve Hatzellis, Dennis Prior, Stephan Bekhor, Eugene An

Molesworth 2

Project description pending.

Location: Kew
Type: Apartment
Size: 165 sq m
Status: Under Construction
Design: WSH
Design Team: Andrew Simspon, Owen West, Steve Hatzellis, Dennis Prior, Eugene An

Beach Hill

This existing detached dwelling in Somers is the site of a change from weekend retreat to coastal residence. The design for an extension to the rear of the dwelling subsequently addresses the implications of such a shift, including specific brief requirements that accompany it. This project alludes to the lifestyle of the beach-comer - sensitive to the changing of the weather, the collection of flotsam and the marking of time based on the rising and setting of the sun.

The extension combines an extensive new timber deck, sheltered by a metal canopy with laser cut perforations, folded strategically to respond to solar tracking and the daily usage of the spaces below. These two floating planes bracket an extended kitchen, external laundry unit and self-contained master bedroom and ensuite, with each new pavilion shifting the quality and use of interstitial space along the new deck.

Location: Somers
Type: Residential Additions and Alterations
Size: 150 sq m
Status: Unbuilt
Design: WSH
Design Team: Andrew Simspon, Owen West, Steve Hatzellis, Stephan Bekhor

Seaford LSC

The design addresses the complex needs of sustainability, local community and natural ecology by proposing that the Seaford Life Saving Club is a precinct that responds to and enhances the unique qualities of the site.

To achieve this, four key strategies guide the architecture and planning. These include: minimal intervention to the existing site by using lightweight construction techniques, raised floor and a dispersed building footprint; the development of a cladding system design as stacked sand shelves to encourage propagation of grasses and local plant species around the building perimeter; the inclusion of a significant water retention system and the use of transpired solar air heaters to the north of the buildings for winter heating; and a plan arrangement design to splice landscape and architecture as co-dependent elements of the project.

Location: Seaford
Type: Life Saving Club and Community Centre
Size: 500 sq m
Status: Competition - Commendation Award
Design: WSH
Design Team: Andrew Simspon, Owen West, Steve Hatzellis, Mark Bol