Architect's experimental home and workspace has a very unexpected colour scheme

As one of the most gleefully experimental of Melbourne’s architects, Andrew Maynard took the renovation of his own family residence as an opportunity to experiment.

In remaking the rear quarters of one of the earliest shop-dwelling terraces in near-city Fitzroy, where Austin Maynard Architects occupies the retail frontage, he says: “I played with lots of ideas I’ve dared not try with clients.”

Removing “the standard mess” of back rooms from the middle terrace of what are notoriously dark buildings, “what I did here was create the complete antithesis with a greenhouse-like space that almost requires you to wear sunglasses.”

Add a primary yellow-painted concrete floor into that west-facing sitting room-kitchen that is shared with practice staff, and you need to be prepared to experience a novel domestic space.

With the blue pot plant holders supporting thriving greenery, and the open shelving displaying the stuff of a household’s lifestyle, the room has a physical as well as visual impact. Maynard theorises that kinetic effect may be because he’s made a space “that is not just functional. It’s a 24-hour space that blurs any label”.

It’s a greenhouse, a chill-out space for the staff, the couch can be made into a guest bed “and it’s challenging because it’s constantly changing (functional) status.

“I find that when I do a non-labelled space like this it often becomes one of the most human of spaces,” he says.

True, that. But yellow – which also appears on the staircase where the below-the-tread hollows are shelf-spaces for shoe storage, and on the floor of the open-sided mezzanine space above the kitchen, is just so … so yellow! The spectral opposite of mellow.

He says the explanation for selecting the house’s colour scheme “is actually boring”.

“One of the people who work here found a yellow kitchen tap. So we did yellow as a solid colour. The blue pots I just liked even if,” he chuckles, “it does make the scheme a bit Ikea“.

On the information given so far, could we expect such a bright, west-facing room with a translucent ceiling to be virtually uninhabitable during summer?

Maynard presses a button and an all-covering blue shade blind crawls down the roof slant to change the light and feel of the room.

“It makes the space work thermally far better than we ever expected”, he says. “Our temperature recorders log it as being very stable. And even on a 40-degree day, the hottest it’s ever been is 28 degrees.”

When the blind is retracted, another unexpected effect in this very unexpected space “is that we can experience great sunsets … inside the house”.

Yellow House by Austin Maynard Architects. Photo: Tess Kelly

Yellow House by Austin Maynard Architects. Photo: Tess Kelly

Yellow House by Austin Maynard Architects. Photo: Tess Kelly

Yellow House by Austin Maynard Architects. Photo: Tess Kelly

Yellow House by Austin Maynard Architects. Photo: Tess Kelly