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Architects who construct their very own homes are a bit like scientists who experiment on themselves. Their aspirations are excessive, however there’s invariably nobody else for them to experiment on, nobody to fund it and nobody who believes within the outcomes it’d ship.
Architect Invoice Lucas was born to experiment, and the Glass Home in Castlecrag, on Sydney’s Decrease North Shore, was an experiment in dwelling he had been working towards for 10 years. It was co-authored (so to talk) with architect Ruth Harvey Lucas, his spouse and companion, who had endured the trials of Sydney College’s College of Structure with him; his youthful brother Nev Lucas, whom Invoice and Ruth had “taught” to construct and element buildings; and Bevan Gee, Invoice’s warfare buddy and accountant. Coupled to them have been the mandatory substances – a block of land, a slice of Sydney’s uncooked earth, and Invoice’s warfare service mortgage – in addition to the pending arrival of Invoice and Ruth’s first little one. Collectively, these amounted to means, motive and alternative.
It sounds extra like against the law than an experiment for a distinct way of life, and on the time many individuals, notably the genteel folks of leafy Castlecrag and Willoughby Municipal Council, thought it was an outrage. Castlecrag was topic to strict covenants and constructing controls, meant to protect Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin’s unique imaginative and prescient for the suburb. I don’t know the way they acquired round these covenants – certainly one of which stipulates buildings should be of stone, brick or concrete – however the Lucas’s radical constructing was so deeply buried within the bush that it’s doable no person may discover it, and possible that no person even knew or noticed what they have been doing.
Right this moment, the Glass Home is thought to be a seminal instance of the light-weight, shelter-in-nature buildings designed in Sydney after World Conflict II. The design is emblematic of Invoice’s progressive system for a cost-effective construction, and makes a minimal impression on the steep, rocky bushland website. The home has been on the New South Wales State Heritage Register since 2016.
Invoice and Ruth’s experiences throughout their early careers led them to the design of the Glass Home. After registering as an architect in 1951, Ruth Harvey – then in her twenties – launched into the Grand Tour, practising within the Fashionable or Worldwide idiom with European architects. She additionally visited the work of Richard Neutra, and Charles and Ray Eames and their friends within the USA, witnessing the late postwar growth wherein buildings wanted to be completely different, mild, high quality, open and new.
Invoice’s worldwide expertise was, against this, stunning and tragic, however in a roundabout way equally educative. He had suffered traumatic accidents within the burning wreckage of a World Conflict II fighter aircraft, after which spent 12 months recovering at Turnberry in Scotland. The warfare had been laborious on Invoice, however again in Sydney, along with his freshly minted diploma in structure, he and his collaborators set about rebuilding the world anew, one home at a time.
Within the mid Fifties, Ruth and Invoice arrange a design studio alongside Tony Moore and Neville Gruzman. This unfastened affiliation or collaboration was often known as the Design Group, and comprised younger women and men with an astonishing world view, which they believed may very well be attained by way of design.
Accomplished in 1957, a 12 months after Invoice and Ruth have been married, the Glass Home was the primary Lucas household dwelling. It was not a picturesque cottage within the woods, nor was it cosy, however it nonetheless captured the essence of a house. What it lacks in substance it greater than makes up for in gravitas. With its featherweight construction, it floats miraculously concerning the tree cover, above the rocks, and above torrents of water making their approach all the way down to the long-lasting harbour shore. When documenting the home for this story, photographer Brett Boardman likened it to a magic carpet.
It has a driveway, a storage, a carport, back and front doorways, a kitchen, a lounge and a eating room – actually, all of the rooms {that a} home requires. It additionally has a courtyard, a verandah, garments traces, a backyard, and the setting that single household houses anticipate. Nevertheless it has one different factor that so a lot of at this time’s homes lack: it has an concept, and that concept is economic system. Financial system is in each facet of the home; it’s sufficient and since it is just sufficient, it’s sustainable.
Right this moment, 65 years because it was constructed, it’s a fragile but worthwhile exemplar of all anybody may have to stay, in Sydney or just about anyplace else. The shape is well understood and has been so cherished and lived in by everybody who has been lucky sufficient to name it dwelling. It has aged and its new house owners are actually embarking on a program of loving upkeep and conservation. They and the house’s earlier custodians share a heat appreciation of the home, the place and the genius of Invoice and Ruth Lucas.
I first visited the home within the late Nineteen Seventies and have been lucky to have returned many instances within the intervening years. It at all times appears the identical to me. In certainly one of our many conversations, Invoice informed me he designed the home as a system that may very well be used for constructing every little thing. It was meant as a prototype, from which others may be taught and progress. Ruth designed the home as a program that will swimsuit household dwelling. Neither method is dominant, though some comment that the home seems harmful for kids. And but, it has at all times been lived in by younger kids. It could be a playhouse, a tree home or a cubby home earlier than it’s a glass home, however it’s, at its essence, a home.
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