Alexander House

Alexander &CO.
Australia

Located in a heritage context, Alexander House provides a highly flexible, co-working environment. It is an architectural showcase, as much a house, as it is a place for idea incubation and recreation.

Alexander House is a thesis, prototype and a place for the team and community to test out and challenge ideas, as well as a space to host creative conversations and events. The project champions the local craftspeople and also provides a working space to explore sustainability techniques, carbon sequestration and environmental innovation.

Key technologies, principles and innovations have been integrated to the build as part of an ongoing commitment to a goal of circular economics by 2022 – zero carbon and zero-landfill. The project incorporates a solar system that supplies 60 to 80 percent of the daily electrical supply and there is a solar hot water system with two underground tanks storing 22,000 litres to supply the sanitary and internal water filtration system. Mandatory cross-ventilation and a west-facing glass block wall section allows for light input and heat exclusion while a rooftop, west-facing terrace and mass screening prevent heat absorption. An externally insulated and internally thermally massive wall system creates an ambient, internal temperature. Reclaimed, harvested and reused timbers have been employed and handmade rammed earth bricks and panels made from recycled building waste were used in the build.

The project is a creative collaboration of makers and thinkers, and each new material, progressive technology or detail is the result of collaborative innovation. At its very core, Alexander House is a forward-thinking, design laboratory that supports a diversity of uses and challenges engagement with one another and the environment and encourages enterprise and innovation.

 

Furniture: CDF Studio, Re. Collective Studio, Chunk Design, Hugh McCarthy Design, James Richardson Furniture, Jonathan West, Make Furniture, Demuz Design, Spence & Lyda, Ondene, Fred International, The Vault, Tigmi Trading. Lighting: The Lighting Guild, 27hundred. Finishes: Ludi Braga Interior, Concrete Bespoke, SNB Stone, Surface Gallery, Teranova, Worldstone, InStyle, Demuz Design, Home Upholstery, Eco Outdoor, Havwoods, Swadlings, Sydney Tile Gallery. Fittings & Fixtures: Natural Brick Co., Re. Studio Collective, Brick Werx Ltd, Concrete Bespoke, CDF Studio, Brodware, English Tapware Company, Expella, Milu, Cadrys Rugs, Empire Steel, Subpod, Charles Charbel Upholstery, Studio Enti, Homelife Furnishings, Slightly Garden Obsessed.

 

Photography: Anson Smart