LITTLE RICHARDSON

Utilising principles of adaptive reuse and sensory design, Little Richardson uses scenographic, formal and haptic strategies to respond to the urban streetscape.

A compositional scenographic study refined an arrangement of horizontal and vertical strip windows in the red-brick façade extending some of the existing openings / patching in others. The form robustly occupies the laneway corner, a sculptural intent and important to reuse the existing structure where possible as a conceptual and contextual strategy. 

It was important to seamlessly connect courtyard to living space – you enter the house when you enter the courtyard, and this sense of landscape connection is important to environmental sensory design – improving psychological wellbeing.

Interior materiality was explored through the haptic; consideration of daylight effects to a condensed palette exploring 4 elements and their relationship to the body; the paring of white spaces with the tonal richness of dark tiled spaces to wet areas, concrete;  inside-outside on the ground floor, external stair and roof-deck cladding above, and various oak timbers defining the ceiling plane and joinery.  As Derek John Clements-Croome writes; “We link our perceptions about materials through our senses … they hold memories of activities ….. in other words, materials can hold our emotions”