Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Welcome intrusions


When it comes to the meeting of natural forms with hard infrastructure, the manmade stuff almost always seems to win the day.

Trees get uprooted and replaced with concrete slabs. Sloping blocks are tamed through cut-and-fill. Rock ledges are blasted and hammered and chiselled into submission.

Not in this office. I've visited this client before, but I don't think I noticed it back then - even though it's pretty obvious! If I did notice it, I certainly didn't remember it.

Throughout this two-storey office / boathouse you find the welcome intrusion of the original resident - a massive sandstone ledge. It's there when you walk in the front door, it's there poking into the staircase, it's there when you go downstairs to the bathroom.

Instead of being treated as a nuisance, it's been made a feature. And it's truly stunning. The timber boards have been neatly cut to fit right into every nook-and-cranny of the rock they surround.

The workmanship is amazing, and apparently he has no problems with moisture whatsoever.

Apologies for the poor photos - unfortunately, I only had my camera phone. It was too good not to get some sort of image.

The client was running late for our meeting, so he told me to set myself up in there and do some of my own work.

What a hard office to work in - features like these behind you, and the lapping of water beneath you as you (literally) work above the Parramatta River overlooking Cockatoo Island.

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