Housing bins, bikes, garden supplies and an air conditioning unit, this mirror clad shed visually dissolves, whilst intriguing and confounding the viewer from the street.
This 6.5m2 project is a glorified garden shed which operates on many levels, both functional and aesthetic. It sits on the boundary separating the driveways, parking bays and entry porches of a pair of mirror matched deco period, dual occupancy houses in a street lined both sides with four sets of these mirrored pairs.
Design Response
Whilst maintaining the driveway, car space and pathway to the entry porch, ‘the shed’ transforms an unsightly service yard into a bright outdoor living space on the south side of the existing house. It gathers bins, bikes, ladders, tools, garden supplies and a large double fan AC condenser unit into a discreet, secure, storage space whilst forming a visual and acoustic barrier to next door property. It reflects sunlight into the southern courtyard and living spaces, whilst utilising its roof as a sunny rooftop garden bed, extending the scope of our client’s passion and dedication to their garden.
Taking a formal clue from the uncharacteristic angled niche to the adjacent wall of the existing house ‘the shed’ swells in plan from zero to a meter deep and back to zero, a pregnant fence if you like, minimising its impact on both the streetscape and the site circulation. Disguised as a regular paling fence to the southern boundary and clad in laser cut natural anodised aluminium to the north, these surfaces are simultaneously joined, separated, disguised and disoriented by the angled, toughened glass, silver back mirror panel. Auto-collaging context upon context, north upon south and sunlight upon shade, this visually dissolves the form whilst intriguing and confounding the viewer from the street.
Mirror Shed Design Specifications
Services Provided
Full Services
Architect
Workshop Architecture
People
Project Director: James Staughton Project Team: James Staughton, Christy Bryar Photographer: Workshop Architecture
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