Author: Field Office Architecture

Can you believe how quickly the year has gone? As we reflect on an exciting and productive 2024, we’re also racing toward the finish line with some big milestones on the horizon. Here’s what’s been keeping us busy:

Green Gable House, Daylesford:

Firstly, we recently uploaded our Green Gables House project to our website, which you can find here. Designed to be simple, timeless, thermally sustainable and off-grid, this project balances the functional needs of a vibrant home with a selection of resilient materials that will evolve gracefully over time, immersing itself with the surrounding landscape.

Still a work-in-progress, the renders have been done by our friends at Kin Creatives.

Point Lonsdale House:

October saw the handover of Point Lonsdale House, a reimagining of the contemporary beach house. With landscaping set to begin early in the new year, we’re excited to share photos once the finishing touches are complete. Our clients, now happily moved in, are already preparing to host their first Christmas there, making this a particularly special project for us.

Japan:

Chris recently returned from a trip to Japan with his family, a trip that was fairly inspirational on a serveral levels. A highlight was a private tour of the Inax showroom in Tokyo, thanks to our regular suppliers and collaborators at Artedomus. It was fascinating to explore the rich history of their products (which we use all the time) and learn how traditional Japanese craftsmanship informs their work.

Collaborations:

We were fortunate to assist with roles on the base build for two recently opened Lucas Group projects: Carlotta, a new Italian restaurant in Canberra, and Maison Bâtard, a refined French dining experience on Bourke Street in Melbourne. Collaborating with Mitchell & Eades Interiors on these spaces was an absolute pleasure, and the feedback on these projects has been great.

Recognition:

Our Greens Beach House was a finalist in the Architeam Awards last week in the Unbuilt category. While it’s still in development, this recognition has reinvigorated our excitement for bringing this project to life.

As always, we are grateful to our clients, collaborators, and community for your ongoing support and trust in us. Until next time.

Spring has arrived in Melbourne, and with it, a renewed energy as warmer days begin to break through. Early morning site visits are becoming more pleasant, and the scent of spring is in the air—along with the excitement of footy finals. But amid the brighter days, some of the erratic weather reminds us of the growing climate challenges and the uncertainty it brings.

As a practice, we’ve found our work increasingly pulling us toward regional projects, with new developments in Red Hill, Blairgowrie, Yandoit, the Grampians, Daylesford, and Tasmania’s Dodges Ferry and Deviot. This is on top of recent projects in Mansfield, Point Lonsdale and Rye.

We love these types of projects which are predominantly residential, and feel a real sense of privilege to be able to work on them.

These environments invite a slower, more mindful approach to life—one that emphasises simplicity, connection with nature, and a sense of grounding. With these projects, we have the opportunity to design spaces that work with the site and natural surroundings and provide our clients with a sense of retreat and belonging. It’s about embracing a quieter, more deliberate lifestyle, where the home truly resonates with its occupants and becomes a place to recharge and reconnect.

We look forward to sharing more about these projects soon, including the waterfront Dodges Ferry.

In other news, our Point Lonsdale project is nearing completion, and we can’t wait to share more of this one with you. This two-storey, four-bedroom home is a reimagining of a contemporary beach house. Designed to be simple, refined and thermally sustainable and off-grid, this project balances the functional needs of a vibrant family home with a selection of resilient materials that will evolve gracefully over time, immersing itself with the surrounding landscape.

One of our recent clients has decided to sell their block in Rye, along with the design plans we’ve created for it. If anyone is on the lookout for a stunning opportunity to build a thoughtfully designed elevated home in this beautiful coastal area, feel free to reach out.

Link here. 

We hope you are having a great year to date. Until next time.

It’s that old cliche, but the year couldn’t go any faster.

We’re in May and have had a good start to 2024. We made a conscious decision to focus on projects and clients that energise us as a practice, and challenge us in the directions that we want to be growing in.

For us, this means meaningful projects that retain a strong sense of place, with brave and forward-thinking clients, and maintaining a strong focus on sustainability.

Our work continues to evolve, and we’re excited about what this means for the year ahead.

Last Friday, The Local Project published our recently completed Fitzroy North Terrace project.

The project is also now live on our website.

This two storey addition to an existing Victorian terrace, faced a challenge that we often come across on tight inner city blocks, and that is the east-west orientation on a narrow footprint.

A strategic move that we made on this project was to carve out a small north-facing courtyard adjacent to the new kitchen on Ground Floor, and whilst not a large space, this really unlocked a whole series of planning decisions that allowed for quality natural light and a connection with landscape to all of ground floor. The result is a home instilled with an atmosphere of calm retreat, that fosters joy and recharge.

We loved working on this project, and feel that it sets a template within the practice for well-crafted and highly considered inner-city additions and alterations that are sustainable, light-filled, and have a seamless connection with landscape.

Landscape by Andy Murray Landscape Design, photos by Tom Ross.

In other news, we had feedback from our recently completed Bridge Creek House client that they are yet to use any heating at all – not even the fireplace – since they moved in late November. This is despite some sub-zero temperatures throughout recent weeks.

This was absolute music to our ears. A key aspiration for this project was thermal performance. The 4-bedroom house is completely off-grid, relying on strategic planning, material selection, thermal mass and a tight building fabric to maintain a comfortable living environment.  We are thrilled to see our sustainability goals being realised in such a tangible way and look forward to sharing more updates as the project progresses.

We hope you are having a great year to date. Until next time.

Hello 2024!

We trust that your summer has been a rewarding one to date. Restful, full of joyful moments with family and friends.

January is typically a quieter month for us, it’s often joked in the industry that the summer holidays don’t really finish until January 26th. Not quite the case for us this year as we’ve jumped straight into it, including some new projects such as an off-grid new home on a stunning block with amazing views in Mt Best, South Gippsland. We love these projects.

The end of the year was a mad rush as it always seems to be, but we did manage to celebrate the last day with a long celebratory lunch at Pincho Disco in Collingwood. Super proud of this team, and it was great to have a pretty well-earned break.

In other news, it was really nice to see the blackbutt timber ceiling structure start to go in at our Point Lonsdale House project late last week, a new family home that is a reimaging of the contemporary beach house.

Designed to be simple, refined, and highly sustainable, this project balances the functional needs of a vibrant family home with resilient materials that evolve gracefully over time, immersing itself in nature. We look forward to sharing more about this one. Site progress picture above, 3D render below. 

Wishing you a great start to the year.

We are really pleased to announce Nicolas Gutierrez as a Partner and Director at Field Office Architecture.

Nic has been with the practice since 2019, however, his partnership with Chris stretches back 23 years since the two studied Architecture at Melbourne University.

With an impressive career spanning over 16 years, Nic has successfully led award-winning projects across the residential sector, delivering challenging, beautiful, and sustainable outcomes. His passion for creating spaces that inspire and enhance the human experience aligns perfectly with our practice’s core values. By way of introduction, we thought we’d share a quick Q+A with Nic.

Q – Tell us what you love about Architecture, and what got you hooked.

NG – I was hooked from the very beginning! With over 16 years of experience in the field and having worked in 3 small practices, my focus has always been on residential architecture.

After completing uni, I intentionally sought opportunities in small practices to gain exposure to the entire architectural process. I believed that understanding the big picture would prepare me for larger practices and projects, but I guess that never happened! I found my passion in the personal and intimate nature of small practices.

Architecture has always been about enhancing the human experience, and what more significant place is there than one’s home? From the most basic aspect of providing refuge, shelter, and comfort, to complementing and elevating how and with whom we share our lives.

I love the unique challenge that each client brings, getting to really know what makes them tick, and feeding off that to create something amazing that is all about them.

Q – You bring a fresh perspective to our team as a new partner. What’s your strongest skill set? How do you plan to blend your skills and ideas with our existing members to take our practice to the next level?

NG – On a human level, I’d say a strong sense of empathy and honesty are my key strengths. On a practical level, I’m methodical and deliberate, able to identify the essential aspects of a problem and organise an efficient way forward with the resources at hand.

It’s similar to how I see architecture as a catalyst to living our best lives, through my strengths. Through my strengths, I’m here as a catalyst to help bring out the best in our team and practice.

Q – What are some of the biggest challenges architects face in the residential sector these days? And more importantly, how do you tackle these hurdles? 

NG – The impact we have on our environment and what our world will look like for future generations. As an Architect, our profession inherently involves building, which consumes huge amounts of natural resources and energy and has a significant impact.

The best thing for the environment would be simply not to build, but as humans, we need to build to survive and progress. A key role as Architects is to help strike that balance and shape new construction to allow us to grow and develop as a society, but do so sustainably in the true sense of the word.

Q – What innovations in architecture inspire you? How do you think these advancements will shape our practice in the future?

NG – Innovations in sustainable and energy-efficient design through improved material technology, and the evolving integration of nature and architecture as beautifully resolved systems, is what I find truly inspiring.

As a practice, we incorporate eco-responsible materials and passive design strategies, to not only reduce the environmental impact but also enhance the living experience.

We must pursue this goal into the future and continue to integrate sustainable principles into every aspect of our practice and projects until it is not the exception but the norm.

The year is flying by, however, we’ve been keeping busy with some really great projects, all at different stages of design, documentation, and construction.

In the next couple of months, we’ll have 3 residential projects all reach practical completion, to add to the 2 that finished earlier in the year.

Needless to say, this is a really exciting time for our clients as they watch the final touches come together, and their vision become reality.

We’re pleased that all of these projects are reaching very successful outcomes. All have weathered a crazy 2-3 year period which saw the unique disruption of covid (to put it mildly), and all the various knock-on effects, not limited to a somewhat unsettled construction industry.

Nonetheless, here we are, and we’re certainly seeing great signs of some normalcy and optimism ahead.

In other news, Chris recently presented the Moonee Valley Tote Building at the Victorian Architecture Institute Awards for Heritage.

We were approached by the clients via a design competition in 2018, which we eventually won, to transform the original 1930s Moonee Valley Racecourse Tote Building into a new restaurant, bar and social space that would be the centre point to a new parkland and entry point to the entire precinct.

For almost a century, this building had been the original betting location for the racecourse, and had been subject to a number of ad-hoc renovations and additions over the years. 

We saw an opportunity immediately to strip back the existing Tote Building to its original 1930s form whilst creating a new contemporary addition that is equally site and brief responsive, as it is respectful and in harmony to the original heritage form.

You can learn more about it here.