Shaun Lockyer Architects is a Brisbane-based firm focusing on contemporary architecture, especially homes, and sustainable and efficient techniques. Here are some of their projects. In addition, they are also members of the Australian Institute of Architects.
1. The Mosman House: A family home | Shaun Lockyer Architects
The Mosman House, designed by Shaun Lockyer Architects and built by County Construction, is a family home masterpiece that is a pure reflection of the traditional forms of Mosman bungalows; with its use of materials, textures and patinas modified into contemporary architecture while still using its history as a reference. Taking its context into consideration, William Dangar, the landscape designer, made the entrance to the house extremely inviting by breaking the pattern of the street and creating beautifully landscaped terraces throughout the site before actually getting into the house.
The home tells its own story through the choice of raw and natural materials used, such as concrete, stone, timber, and steel, linking its connection to the past and offering two different senses to the landscape, one that is intimate and one that is open with views of the waters stretching to Taylors Bay southeastern Mosman Peninsula. The dialogue between the landscape and water views can’t help but evoke different sensations. The interior spaces designed meticulously by Justine Hugh-Jones contain expressive, dynamic finishes that could be perceived as stand-alone works of art that work in parallel with the natural and neutral material palette. The Mosman home sits completely into the landscape and connects with its past, present and future.
2. The Witta Circle: A modernist house
Witta is an open plan house located in the Nooseheads of Queensland with views of the south canal. Designed with the sole purpose of creating a connection between the exterior and interior, once inside, one can’t help but feel connected to the outside environment. All the architectural elements exhibit that. To enhance the feeling of bringing the outside in, the design incorporates central themes such as plants softening the hard concrete, courtyards, windows, and skylights that pierce light into the interior spaces, elevating the experience and creating a relaxing environment.
To further that ideology Shaun Lockyer Architects used the outdoor pool, its water, and glass panels as a vessel to create light and an interesting shadow reflecting into the basement.
Another major feature is the screen façade facing the street view, creating a sense of privacy, providing shade from the sun, and reducing 50% of the heat coming in, all of which create an interior space with a comfortable temperature. All architectural elements of this home exuberate transparency, privacy, and comfort.
3. Chamber House: A heavy and bold house
It is an exceptionally renovated and restored brutalist house in the inner city of Teneriffe, a key part of Brisbane’s architectural context recognized for its use of concrete blocks and concrete with a lavish amount of landscape. A house originally designed by the extraordinary architect Rodney Chambers contained all the necessary architectural elements for Shaun Lockyer Architects to use. Its original design derived from the building perching out into a longitudinal element adjacent to the landscape edge of the street with an entire glazed large façade facing north, bringing in just the right amount of light.
Shaun Lockyer Architects’ intervention was to mainly create an extension of the original house, an open plan that was defined by edges and not by its walls, giving it the nomenclature of a zero-bedroom house into a 4-bedroom house.
Since the DNA of the building, being the expressive blocks, floor beams, and sun shading devices, were already present, Shaun Lockyer Architects worked on making sure finer interior details of the cabinetry in the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, and use of blond timbers, American oaks was extended throughout the bedroom areas and kitchen to break the weight of the darker black materials and bring warmth into the space. “It’s not a house about passages; it’s simply a house of a series of sequences of spaces and thresholds.”
4. The Terrace: Old meets new
The terrace project is originally a heritage home with a deep plan and a 45-degree pitched roof with terracotta tiles; Shaun Lockyer Architects builds an extension of the home, keeping the heritage and blending it with the contemporary by not only paying homage to what was but by also sitting beside it subtly and standing out.
Like their other restoration projects, there were already clues present for them to run within the existing house to create the extension. The presence of the heavy roof, bricks, and low exposed concrete created opportunities for the new extension by spreading the materials from one end to the other, merging the old house with the new.
A big skylight was designed to frame the gable of the heritage building showing the sensitive and subtle approach that was taken in order to have the whole house feel like one and not as separate entities. The terrace is an exemplary solution of what the combination of old architecture and new architecture can do.
5. Onedin: A home with tactile, natural, and timeless materials | Shaun Lockyer Architects
What makes Onedin a one-of-a-kind project is an approach that respects the site, its climatic conditions, and its regional context of Toowoomba and uses these items to create a home that is bold, complex, and multilayered.
It offers simplicity in the comprising parts yet results in a geometrically complex entity, elevating, intersecting horizontal and vertical planes with cantilevered linear forms.
The central courtyard and stone wall elements are statements on their own, interconnecting all the three separate zones with punctuations throughout to allow natural light in and connect with the outside greenery creating a dance between the inside and the outside, light, and shadows, and solid and voids.
Onedin follows modernistic design principles using concrete and stone combined with timber and glass to create a home that is a balanced and robust response to its site.
6. Arakoon: Timeless beach house
“Arakoon is an ocean view beach house on the Sunshine Coast, enjoying an enviable perch on the coastal dunes in the shadow of Noosa National Park.” The elements of the site are inspirational and an indispensable experience of sense, taking full advantage of the surrounding landscape in-between land and sea.
Shaun Lockyer Architects designed a beach house that enhances the feeling of a home through the use of honest materials and a strong connection to the climate and context where the land and the sea meet and where the surrounding is utterly respected.
The building, elevated on the upper levels and integrated with the natural landscape on the lower level, also offers a sense of privacy and enclosure due to its orientation.
The concept derived from not shying away from the constraints but rather using them as an opportunity to create a home that is welcoming, with resistance to harsh winds and in a constant conversation with the water and natural landscape.
7. Dany’s House: A combination of the history and the contemporary
Shaun Lockyer Architects Danny’s home project is a refurbishment of a Queenslander in New Farm, Brisbane. The site is a narrow land with two frontages offering two diverse experiences with distinctively different characteristics, one that is soft with an old cottage use of timber to the front and one that is hard with a new contemporary feel with the use of concrete to the rear.
“The house embodies overtly subtropical themes, with deep overhangs, protected edges, and the greening of the roof planes, creating a soft edge to the hard architecture,” says Shaun.
The contrast between the soft green natural edge and the hard concrete, the use of door systems that create both a visual and physical connection with the pool outside, results in an ambiguity of where one begins and ends.
There is a natural transition from the existing heritage to the wholly new space, fostered by the use of materials from a lighter approach of white and pale oak to black and concrete. Shaun Lockyer Architects designed this home by combining the contemporary with its history.
8. The Nest: “An acreage lifestyle”
The Nest is an elaborate home inspired by modern architecture located a few kilometers away from the city of Brisbane, in the suburbs of Bardon. The home was designed to offer an ‘acreage lifestyle’, a space perceived as a sanctuary within the inner city, all of which invoke a complete sense of simplicity.
The main concept was derived from the site and its connection to the context, climate, and local resources to create an architectural language that would combine the significance and depth of a lifestyle space portraying a relaxing lifestyle with that of designing for the end-user, using sustainability and choice of natural materials at its forefront. Nothing screams authenticity, practicality, timelessness, robustness, and poetry, like the Nest project.
9. The Graphic House: A cantilevered approach
Shaun Lockyer Architects’ graphic house is designed just for its inhabitant, set on the highest point of one of Brisbane’s inner western suburbs, on the corner of a quiet street. It’s a 4-level house that steps down the site, stacked as a series of cantilever volumes. The approach to the design was that of purity and quality, using charred timber screens and jointed limestone cladding to accentuate the rectilinear forms and horizontal lines.
Black textures, wall panels and French oak define the interior spaces, where the black in contrast with the very bright home isn’t irritating, but creates an opposite cooler feel.
“The material palette is restrained, but the house itself is not. It is rather theatrical; it’s all about the view, the art, and entertaining”, says Shaun.
The design of the home is generously scaled and can expand while also being comfortable enough for just its inhabitants, a real testament to its architecture.
10. BattleStar House: A brutalist abode | Shaun Lockyer Architects
The BattleStar House, located in Brisbane, is a provocative architectural piece within its context, inspired by modernism and brutalism in response to the inner-city subtropical climate.
The surrounding of the site is relatively suburban dense, which is why creating a series of private indoor-outdoor spaces resonated with the architect; like most of the firm’s works, the BattleStar house also uses a robust and restrained material palette, with the use of concrete due to its resilience and thermal performance.
The use of timber on the exterior of the building acts as a screen to reduce the amount of heat transferred into the interior spaces and, in juxtaposition, also breaks the harshness of the concrete and transforms the house into a “Japanese lantern-like aesthetic by twilight”. The element that stands out the most though, according to Shaun, is the engulfed concrete chimney.
References:
- The Local Project (2021). A House Made of Concrete Inspired by Brazilian Modernism (House Tour). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJHiHt3XAOw.
- ArchShowcase. (2019). Mosman House in New South Wales, Australia by Shaun Lockyer Architects. [online] Available at: https://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/2019/04/10/mosman-house-in-new-south-wales-australia-by-shaun-lockyer-architects/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- Shaun Lockyer Architects . Brisbane Architects . Bespoke Residential Architecture + Interior Design. (n.d.). Mosman House | 2016. [online] Available at: https://www.lockyerarchitects.com.au/project/mosman-house-2016/.
- www.youtube.com. (n.d.). A Modernist Super House That Explores Connection of Architecture, Interior and Garden (House Tour). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyfPgf8KUaY [Accessed 11 Jan. 2022].
- www.youtube.com. (n.d.). The Journey of Restoring A Brutalist Home (House Tour). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Mchgw-5sw [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- Architects, S.L. (2020). Place | The Terrace. [online] Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/440886750 [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- The Local Project. (2020). Onedin by Shaun Lockyer Architects – Project Feature. [online] Available at: https://thelocalproject.com.au/articles/onedin-by-shaun-lockyer-architects-project-feature-the-local-project/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- The Local Project. (2021). Arakoon by Shaun Lockyer Architects – Issue 07 Feature. [online] Available at: https://thelocalproject.com.au/articles/arakoon-by-shaun-lockyer-architects-issue-07-feature-the-local-project/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- Shaun Lockyer Architects . Brisbane Architects . Bespoke Residential Architecture + Interior Design. (n.d.). Arakoon | 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.lockyerarchitects.com.au/project/arakoon-2020/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- The Local Project. (2020). Danny’s House by Lockyer Architects – Project Feature. [online] Available at: https://thelocalproject.com.au/articles/dannys-house-by-lockyer-architects-project-feature-the-local-project/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- Shaun Lockyer Architects . Brisbane Architects . Bespoke Residential Architecture + Interior Design. (n.d.). Danny’s House | 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.lockyerarchitects.com.au/project/dannys-house-2020/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- The Local Project. (2019). The Nest by Shaun Lockyer Architects – An Acreage Lifestyle Moments from the City. [online] Available at: https://thelocalproject.com.au/articles/the-nest-by-shaun-lockyer-architects-project-feature-brisbane-qld-australia/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- The Local Project. (2020). Graphic House by Shaun Lockyer Architects – The Artedomus Series. [online] Available at: https://thelocalproject.com.au/articles/graphic-house-by-shaun-lockyer-architects-the-artedomus-series-the-local-project/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- HomeWorldDesign. (2021). Battle Star House by Shaun Lockyer Architects. [online] Available at: https://homeworlddesign.com/battle-star-house-by-shaun-lockyer-architects/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
- www.realestate.com.au. (n.d.). QLD Battle Star house ‘so mad that you have to love it’ – realestate.com.au. [online] Available at: https://www.realestate.com.au/news/qld-battle-star-house-so-mad-that-you-have-to-love-it/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2022].
