Kieron Gait Architects updates Balmoral Hillside House with timber-framed undercroft

A timber-framed undercroft "dissolves" the boundaries between inside and out at this house in Brisbane, renovated by local studio Kieron Gait Architects.

Named Balmoral Hillside House after the suburb in which it is located, the home was designed in the 1990s in the style of a Queenslander – a typology prevalent across the state where living spaces sit elevated above an open undercroft.

Kieron Gait Architects was tasked with updating the dwelling for a family who wanted to prioritise this undercroft space, using it to foster a close relationship with the surrounding garden.

"Typical of the time, [Balmoral Hillside House] was built very cheaply with no insulation and untreated pine in the main," explained the studio.

"Fortunately, the house had excellent quality hardwood bearers and joists and was already highest with a 2.4-metre clear in the undercroft and on a fairly flat platform," it added.

"Despite its hillside site affording expansive views from the upper level, the owners wanted to forge strong connections to the garden for their three young boys."

Set back from the driveway behind a parking area and entrance courtyard, Balmoral Hillside House is accessed by a walkway leading into the undercroft, which now opens to gardens at the front and back of the home.

From the undercroft is an entrance flanked by a snug and a bedroom that overlook the garden through full-height sliding glass doors.

A large dining, kitchen and double-height living area stretches all the way to the back of the home, where an L-shaped window bench overlooks the outside alongside an additional garden room.

Tucked into the darker central portion of the plan is a laundry space, store and bathroom, all of which are accessible off a central corridor.

"Within the house, space is given to a central hallway, set out from the existing bearers and revealing the structure of the house above," said the studio.

"Particular effort has been made in how to occupy the edges of the house from the room-sized window reveal in the kitchen, to a home office with its desk in the window acting as a sentinel for the house," added Kieron Gait Architects.

"The edges dissolve to draw the landscape – quite literally – into the house. Thresholds of stone pebbles drift throughout the house separating public and private, inside and out," it added.

Balmoral Hillside House's undercroft spaces are all framed by beams and planks of dark spotted gum timber – part of a "simple and timeless" material palette that contrasts with the more traditional appearance of the home's upper storey.

A staircase at the back of the home leads to this upper level, which contains other bedrooms, as well as a library space overlooking the double-height living area below from a small balcony.

Other recent projects that have involved updating Queenslander homes include the renovation of a Brisbane cottage by Zuzana and Nicolas into a home and studio.

Elsewhere in Brisbane, John Ellway recently created Hopscotch House and Koichi Takada Architects completed the Upper House high-rise.

The photography is by Christopher Frederick Jones.

The post Kieron Gait Architects updates Balmoral Hillside House with timber-framed undercroft appeared first on Dezeen.