The brief for the project was to conserve and restore a former church hall, with minimal alterations, following the principles of the Burra Charter. The church had been derelict for a decade and therefore needed to be adaptively reused for residential purposes. The home needed to have a maximum amount of natural light and ventilation, use recycled materials, harness rainwater, be flexible for a possible home office and use native plants.
The major difficulty at the site was planning around a large natural tree which was in the centre of the rear yard. The design overcame this by moving the driveway to the side of the building and sloping the carport floor upwards, thus cantilevering over the root system of the tree.
The second problem was how to best preserve the building’s Cathedral ceiling with its carved, ornate trusses. This required Otto Cserhalmi, director at Otto Cserhalmi and Partners, to think outside the square somewhat. Instead of positioning living areas on the groundfloor and bedrooms on the upper floors, which would have resulted in having to partition the top floor into a series of bedrooms and destroyed the openness of the church and its ceilings, Cserhalmi put the living areas on the top floor. With an open plan arrangement, the ceiling of the church hall was left uninterrupted.
Cserhalmi designed the outer edges of the top floor to let light in from above flow through to the groundfloor bedrooms and bathroom areas, which had poor lighting due to small windows. He used translucent glass floor elements, with glass that was toughened and 15 mm thick with an obscure film layer. “As the exterior of the church hall was not to be altered in any significant manner, the glass horizontal lighting strip was introduced into the main roof. Below this new light source the glazed flooring was designed.”
The glass flooring has a minimal impact on the building’s thermal performance as the overall building protects it from heat gain, such as the adjacent 230 mm thick solid brick walls, the two layers of roofing with insulation between layers and the glazing is also tempered.
“It had to be trafficable, so it required close work with the structural engineer, builder and glazing workshop. The easiest part was the use of recycled timbers on the new stairs — wonderful old growth timber sourced by the builder. The timber was fixed so carefully by the joiners that no fixing marks are visible from the top or sides of the timbers,” Cserhalmi says.
Australian North Coast Hardwood — Northern Beach Species (100 mm x 19 mm tongue and grooved, secret nailed) was used for the strip flooring to address the need for high traffic and wear. The tongue and grooved strip flooring has longer tongues than normal, through which each board is nailed. This ensured no fixings are visible on the top surface and the flooring is smoother and easier to maintain. The effect of the flooring is a continuous and light appearance as the whole living area on the top floor and pavilion floors are all one timber. Similarly, the ground floors also use one type of timber.
In other areas of the project, Cserhalmi used 25 mm x 25 mm white mosaic tiles for maximum lightness in the bathroom. On the first floor deck, he used 600 mm x 300 mm light grey tiles for practicality, ease of cleaning and to waterproof the entertaining area below. On the groundfloor outdoor entertaining areas, paths and carport, Cserhalmi used Queensland porphyry granite in the grey and buff range.
“The use of granite blocks allowed a natural timeless quality that blended well with the historic church hall’s brick and sandstone materials, while the greyness of the blocks blended with the bridge grey finish of the new pavilion’s exposed structural steel framework,” Cserhalmi says.
With hindsight, he has learnt some important lessons. “Follow your own beliefs and do not let them be diluted by mediocrity. Understand the project well, such as careful site analysis, careful building attributes and negatives analysed, client needs (not just wants) are understood and an ecological analysis.
“Then when you understand what the heart of the task is, then — not before — commence the design. Thus, the design will be fresh, innovative, creative and at the same time practical and workable.”
