Architects at Home | Madeleine Blanchfield
Defined by calm spaces, abundant light and quiet restraint, Tree House is a deeply personal project for architect Madeleine Blanchfield. Her home draws on both her lived experience and years of professional practice, challenging convention not with spectacle but with subtlety.After years spent occupying her home in its original, rawest state, Madeleine Blanchfield had a clear vision of what mattered most for her family. “It was a scary old house – big, but with a subterranean kitchen and a dirt-cheap upper-level extension,” she says. “We ripped all the walls out of the upper floor, rigged up a kitchen island made from Bunnings pine planks and boarded up the lower level. We lived like that for years, with two little children. Our priorities were confirmed in that emergency reno. We learnt that it was not about having a lot of space but about light, outlook, connection to garden and celebrating the space you do have.”
Tree House is the result of that clarity. It’s not big or overly polished. Instead, it’s defined by thoughtful proportions and considered decisions – many of which are the opposite of what is expected. The living area sits at the top of the house, two storeys above street level; it flips the typical plan. From here, the kitchen and main gathering spaces are bathed in natural light and sit among the treetops. As sunsets unfold in deep reds and golds across the western horizon and dawn brings soft pinks over the ocean, the house shifts in tune with the light. “Being positioned high up, we get clear views of the moon and night sky as well. The ever-changing natural world is part of the experience of the house,” says Blanchfield.
Every gesture in Tree House is intentional, and the mood is joyful and serene. It’s a humble residence, leaning more toward function and feeling than grandiosity. For example, the freezer is outside the kitchen, there is no rangehood above the stove and a cinema room exists only when the projector is brought out from the cupboard. “It has nothing it doesn’t need. But it challenges everything prescriptive in the widely accepted definition of a house.” The materials are few and familiar – timber, concrete, brass – but have been handled with careful intention. Floorboards shift direction from room to room, their transitions marked by fine brass inlays. The 4.5-metre concrete island at the heart of the kitchen is a robust centrepiece, capable of enduring the wear of daily life and designed to be used from all sides. “Our house is not big. There is no marble in the kitchen, only a few finishes throughout,” says Blanchfield. “We used materials in a very simple way but detailed them, so you feel a sense of thoughtfulness. Every junction and application has been made with care and deliberation.”
This clarity of purpose stems from years of designing with and for others through her lauded eponymous practice. Known for her refined yet understated residential work, Blanchfield consistently resists trend-driven gestures in favour of timeless forms, natural light and intuitive planning. Her designs speak to a belief that architecture should support life, not shape it. And, after years of refining her process, Blanchfield has developed a strong point of view about what a home needs – and just as importantly, what it doesn’t. In Tree House, these values take physical form, not through a show of ideas but through lived experience. An example is the stairwell, which is complex in its construction yet discreet in expression. Blanchfield mentions it with quiet pride – the spaces she values most are the ones that invite stillness. Another instance is the back room, which opens to the garden and feels immediately calm. “Even non-architects comment on this when they walk into the space … It inspires quiet.”
Blanchfield’s home is innately shaped by her upbringing and instincts, and it reflects her personally, too. “If I try to objectively overlay the home’s traits against my own character, there are definitely similarities: calm, quiet, thoughtful, restrained but simultaneously fun-loving, social, curious and tenacious,” she says. She spent her early years between Fiji and Canberra – two places with vastly different relationships to landscape and urban contexts. From Canberra came a wariness of unchecked convention, from Fiji, a sense of lightness and connection to nature. “I think that instilled in me a refusal to accept a social or physical norm without questioning it.”
That mindset flows through the entire house. On the living level, walls are kept to a minimum. Spaces meld into each other, separated more by shifts in level or ceiling height than by partitions. The reading lounge sits slightly below the rest of the floor, a small change that creates a deep feeling of retreat. The ceiling soars above it, and its doors open wide to the garden. Light, which is ever-present, flickers across the pond outside and dances on the ceiling. Blanchfield’s experience in architecture has instilled in her a Miesian understanding of space, and it’s evident in her approach to the house in its entirety. “I’m always looking at a building as a whole, never just the interior or exterior. It’s always about the experience of space.” That experience isn’t meticulously choreographed, but it is carefully supported by light, proportion and the relationship between parts.
Just as the home was designed to grow with its occupants, the garden, too, has changed. As much a part of the architecture as the foundations and walls, the landscape plays an active role in shaping the experience. “I view sanctuaries – and architecture – as inseparable from the surrounding landscape,” says Blanchfield. The planting softens the rectilinear built forms and is in dynamic relationship between interior and exterior. As it’s matured, the house has felt increasingly settled. And yet, despite the clarity of the process, it was not without doubt. There was a moment when Blanchfield considered creating a central courtyard. A few internal walls were moved even after construction began – something she admits she wouldn’t do on a client’s project. But here, in her own space, there was room to test, to shift and to live with the consequences.
Though years in the making and designed and constructed with great care, the completed residence took some adjusting to. “It was quite strange moving back into a house we had lived in for years that was now very different. It took a while to stop mentally comparing things to the way they had been, which was aesthetically terrible but housed lots of memories.” When asked whether it’s now finished, she reflects, “the idea that you move into a house and that’s it is misguided … And I always need more art!” Tree House has evolved with her family and will continue to do so over the years, but while “we have changed some furniture and pulled cupboards out of the spare room to make a craft table, there are no glaring next projects. I wish my wardrobe was bigger, but I think everyone says that!”
Architecture and interior design by Madeleine Blanchfield Architects. Build by Milestone Custom Builders. Landscape design by Spirit Level.
- 项目文案：Chantelle Fausset
- 项目摄影：Anson Smart
- 转载自：The Local Project
- 图片@The Local Project
- 语言：英语
- 编辑：序赞网
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