Matt Gibson Architecture + Design
Matt Gibson Architecture + Design Pty Ltd is a design based Melbourne practice that provides architectural, interior, landscape and furniture design services. The work of Matt Gibson Architecture + Design is based upon a solid foundation of design excellence, including budget and programme control, proficient project management and the achievement of best value and architectural quality. Philosophically the practice aims to engage with issues of culture and habitat through rigorous interrogation and a belief in design as a means of addressing both spatial and programmatic concerns within a wider historical and social context.
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Projects:
Kooyong Residence
Armadale, VIC, 2010
The existing site contained a grand Victorian double front dwelling badly in need of repair. Upon persuasive encouragement and expert advice the client agreed to retain the front elements of the building. Following the removal of a previous addition, the extensive brief requested an upper level addition, garage & pool. Our choice (given depth of the site) was to separate rather than attach the new works to the rear of the existing building which availed textured areas of external space between old & new objects. 2 levels of new ‘L’ shaped floor area are stacked on top of each other at the rear utilising the limits of the site. The warmth & sensuous use of the timber cladding and the employment of radii/curved corners within the apexes of the stacked ‘L’s also help to enhance a more sculptured and playful point of difference to the rigidity and masculinity the existing building. The central courtyard area could have presented as the rear faces of the front and rear buildings however these spaces perhaps instead provide the most interestingly spatial experience & reading of the history of the site.
Mary Residence
St.Kilda, VIC, 2009
This renovation of a Boom Style Victorian 2-story terrace within a heritage overlay celebrates both old and new whilst marrying the periods within an integrated whole. Rather than ‘two pavilions’ this home is instead orchestrated in combination through a continuity of material and colour. The rear is intended as a contemporary interpretation of the front. Whilst retaining a strongly designated functional layout the journey from front to rear involves a progressive spatial ‘editing out’ with selective removal of walls and a break down of the Victorian containment. A central light court becomes a pivotal textural feature in the centre of the home. Full height glazing at centre & rear enable a breezeway and temperature regulator. Allocations of surface, threshold and junction are rigorously explored at the junction of old & new – the existing dwelling retains its high Victorian grandeur, the lower volume contains a more relaxed, contemporary & comfort driven approach.
The Coop
Melbourne, VIC, 2008
This part experimental Installation part retail tenancy ‘incubator’ contends to spurn new businesses and promote GPT’s (Melbourne Central’s) desire to change the face of casual leasing and promote emerging retail innovators. It exemplifies a shift from mass to unique, explores the surge in niche and offers the opportunity to surprise and delight customers through its theme of “moments, stories and events” where individuality rules, conformity is frowned upon and owning something no else has is ‘hot’! Located in a disused access corridor the brief required a low cost, quirky, functional & robust space with flexibility to transform itself & cater for different types of retail tenant. The site specific proposal hoped to provide a ‘destination’ – regenerating and revitalising the previously dead circulation through route – with a self supporting structure that could permit wall displays, flexibility to house more than one tenant, an enticing entry statement, change room & portable POS facilities as well as GPT’s requirement for a strong ESD focus. The concept of the chicken coop whimsically references childhood memories of incubators, seeds in cotton wool under lights and chickens in chicken coops. Rather than fit out the corridor ‘tube’, the proposal instead appears as an insertion or tube within a tube.
