1976 THE KENNY HOUSE / JOHN KENNY

MOVING THROUGH THE HOUSE IS TO EXPERIENCE CHANGING LIGHT AND VARIED SPACES AS THE VOLUMES TAPER OR OPEN UP, OR OUTDOOR AREAS BECOME VISIBLE.

The entrance to the house is via a covered pergola set well back from the main façade.

The dining table sits adjacent to the galley kitchen. The open nature of the house is visible through the doorway which leads to the office space at the front of the house. The open-tread stairs enhance this feeling of lightness.

As a young trainee architect, John Kenny was exposed to two opposing ideologies and methodologies of architectural practice. In the fourth year of his fellowship diploma course in architecture at Melbourne’s RMIT, Kenny needed a work placement and, through a chance meeting hitchhiking, the opportunity arose to work part-time at Hassell and McConnell. The firm had a reputation for handling large industrial and educational projects quickly and efficiently and one of its principals, Jack McConnell, was a formidable character with establishment connections and alliances. ‘McConnell was forceful, incredibly hard-working, formal and a somewhat daunting figure for an aspiring young architect,’ says Kenny.

His second working environment was the office of Kevin Borland, whom Kenny met while studying at RMIT. Borland had many socio-political interests, and connections with Melbourne’s left wing unions and the Communist Party. He also had a track record of avant-garde architectural solutions. His radical Rice House (1951) consisted of a series of timber arches sprayed with concrete and, along with Peter McIntyre and John and Phyllis Murphy, he was part of the design team that won the prestigious Olympic Swimming Stadium Competition in 1953. Borland had a strong sense of social responsibility, and his domestic and educational architecture reflected this. ‘The office atmosphere was quite different at Kevin’s with a relaxed informality. His mum would come in and make us lunch,’ says Kenny. ‘Kevin had seen service in World War Two and, like many of his generation, aspired to ideals and visions for a better world. He often attracted a more independent, freer thinking type of client.’ A commission that best illustrates this was Preshill, a small independent school where children were involved in setting the curriculum. Kenny was responsible for the design of the home rooms, one of the school’s buildings.

Kenny worked with Borland for about three years, graduated and commenced his own practice in 1973. Soon after, he went overseas on a nine-month architectural tour that took in Scandinavia, the UK, France, the USA and Mexico. No doubt influenced by some of the preoccupations of Borland’s practice, Kenny looked particularly at cluster housing in Scandinavia, the new towns of Thamesmead and Cumbernauld in England and Scotland, and the Prairie School in the States, including the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright and Burley Griffin.

Two things in particular were to impress him. The first was the work of Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto, whose studio he visited along with four or five of Aalto’s other buildings. ‘While I appreciated intellectually and admired the work of the modern movement masters like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Wright, and also the more contemporary architectural works of James Stirling and Louis Kahn, I felt in tune with Aalto. I liked the way in which Aalto’s buildings controlled the use of forms and materials, the changing light and often the feeling of spatial movement within the interiors. To me they were fresh, functional and had a timeless quality. The Scandinavian winter is harsh, and buildings need to be designed for severe conditions. They have to work, as well as being pleasing aesthetically internally and externally,’ says Kenny.

The second influence was a group of houses, north of San Francisco, called the Sea Ranch development. Some of this coastal housing had been designed by the architect Charles Moore and his sometime partners, Lyndon, Turnbull and Whitaker, in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The style is often referred to as Bay Area Modern. ‘The development had design covenants restricting the palette of materials, in addition to siting, landscaping and other environmental planning requirements. The architects drew on the local vernacular and the houses have an appearance of random and ad hoc additions like farm buildings. They are sometimes clustered, with interlocking roof lines, clad in weathered red cedar, greyed by its seaside location,’ he recalls.

When he returned to Melbourne in 1974, Kenny started up his practice again, concentrating on domestic housing, and when it came to building a house for himself and his wife, Barbara, the impact of the ideas of both Aalto and the development at Sea Ranch are evident in his design.

Finding a block to build on was not easy, and after several setbacks at auctions, a heavily pregnant Barbara trawled the inner and near-inner suburbs searching for a suitable block. She eventually came across a handwritten sign on an allotment in Kew, advertising land for sale. Its owner Edna Sharp had recently been widowed and had put a portion of her existing block up for sale. ‘She knew Kevin Borland through her own political interests and involvement in the Communist Party and did her homework on us before agreeing to sell,’ says Kenny.

Benchtops are of celery top pine, a timber with water resistant properties. The rangehood was designed by Kenny and custom-made for the house. The same timber was used for the ceiling lining boards and the north and south walls.

A desk, drawers and bookshelves are built around a horizontal window.

A reading light is fixed to the timberclad wall in the bedroom. In keeping with Kenny's appreciation for Scandinavian design, an Aalto stool is used as a bedside table.

The plan for the house was based on a series of modular components, which Kenny designed specifically for this site and his family needs, but with flexibility and options in mind for other clients.

‘I rationalised our spatial requirements into two basic volumes or shapes – a block and a wedge – which could be rearranged in a number of combinations and configurations depending on the site, orientation, access and outlook etc,’ he says. The arrangement of the Kenny House is an offset scheme which allows for courtyards to be integrated into the plan. Other options were a linear development or even a staggered configuration where the modules were organised along a diagonal axis. Kenny hoped that his planning system, which could be realised in brick or brick veneer as well as timber, would be taken up by one of the companies specialising in project homes. With hindsight, he feels his timing was out. ‘I think the whole idea of well-designed project homes was at the end of an era,’ he says. ‘It’s a shame because the issues of sustainability, recycling and use of energy have become increasingly important. When I built this house, I wasn’t even allowed to put in a water tank!’

The house is low impact. The gentle slope from north to south meant that little interference was needed to prepare the ground, and soil was redistributed rather than taken off site.

Kenny and his wife have lived in the house for more than 30 years and it is, he says in characteristically low-key fashion, ‘an example of simple and rationalised residential design concerns, in its planning, assembly and use of material’.

It is not a large house by today’s standards, measuring 175 m², but the siting, the configuration of the modules which are open to courtyards, and the manipulation of the internal volumes, create a feeling of space and light.

The house has a layered sense of approach, positioned back from the road with part of the forecourt used for off-street parking. It feels very private, set behind a low timber fence covered with ivy, and with a simply braced timber gate providing entry to the first courtyard. The front door is modest and not immediately obvious, tucked under a pergola which gives a protective feeling of semi-enclosure, and leading straight into the heart of the home

– the kitchen and dining room.

The plan of the house, which has no corridors and few doors, allows for varying degrees of privacy. The modules create different zones for working, relaxing, cooking, dining, sleeping and bathing. Indeed, Kenny operated his architectural practice in the first of the block and wedge combinations facing the street.

The plan also integrates inside with out. Sited to the west of the kitchen, and north of the living area, is a generous timber-tiered courtyard which catches the northerly sun. Long slim windows, placed horizontally, allow exterior glimpses from the kitchen and the living space, and the bathroom doors slide open to another courtyard giving the sense of bathing outdoors. ‘For a long time I was prone to migraines and found it soothing and a way to relax having a bath at night with the courtyard lights on and the doors open to the breeze,’ says Kenny.

Moving through the house is to experience changing light and varied spaces as the volumes taper or open up, or outdoor areas become visible. ‘The spaces are consistent – 2.1 metres from the floor to where the wall and ceiling meet on one side, and 2.1 metres from the floor to the underside of the mezzanine on the other,’ says Kenny. Due to the absence of passages, and with very few doors, the house has a tremendous sense of flow from one space to the next. Even the open treads of the stairs enable views through to the garden.

Construction is entirely of timber. ‘There was a brick by-law on the other side of the street which for some reason this side escaped,’ says Kenny. Initially, he had wanted to clad the building in western red cedar but there was a significant price difference between it and the fast-growing radiata pine. Internally, Kenny opted for celery top pine, a timber that was traditionally difficult to find, but had become available due to tree felling for the controversial hydro-electric project at Lake Pedder in Tasmania. Celery top pine was being promoted in Melbourne, with a project home built in Glen Waverley to showcase the merits of native Tasmanian timbers. Kenny made enquiries; it hadn’t sold well, and he had the impression they were glad to get rid of it. The celery top pine was used for all lining boards on the north and south walls and, together with the Victorian ash floor, creates a continuous band of one material. The warmth of the timber was balanced by plasterboard, painted white, on all the east and west walls. ‘‘I didn’t want an entirely timber interior. The white walls keep it feeling fresh, reflect light

Kenny’s architectural office was originally in the double-height block and wedge structure at the front of the house. All east and west facing walls were white painted plasterboard to reflect light and maintain a fresh Scandinavian feel. and allow the house to be personalised with one’s interests, be they books, art or craft works,’ says Kenny.

The modular nature of the house creates courtyard areas that allow plants to be integrated into the overall scheme. The exterior cladding is radiata pine boards, fixed vertically and weathered to a pleasing grey over the years.

The celery top pine has also been used in all the wet areas, including the shower recess. It is a tight-grained, slow-growing and very stable timber, which makes it excellent for boat-building, a hobby Kenny enjoyed in his teenage years.

‘When treated with a two-pack Estapol, it endures remarkably well as long as it is maintained and end grains are not exposed,’ he says. While timber benchtops are now commonplace, in the mid-Seventies Kenny was required to apply to the water authority for permission to install them.

Throughout the house, functional elements for storage and shelving have been built in, and the house furnished simply with pieces collected over the years, mixing Aalto classics with Mexican furniture and other decorative objects from the days when John and Barbara ran and operated an importing-retail business, Market Import.

‘We didn’t ever envisage living in the house this long, but it has worked for us, we have been happy here,’ says Kenny. ‘The best backhanded compliment I have ever had about it is to hear it called the Beach House. Due to its interior informality we have never had any desire to have a holiday house because we have always lived in one.’

DETAILS THE KENNY HOUSE

RANGEHOOD Kenny couldn’t find a rangehood on the commercial market that suited the style of the house, so he had this one made specially for the purpose. He had used a similar design before in a client’s house in Melbourne’s South Yarra. The shape of the curved front is partly determined by regulations which dictate a minimum distance from the gas plate. The rangehood was made from bent plywood and then painted white. Inside the hood is a light and a fan ducted to the outside. As with many facets of the house, it combines simple aesthetic considerations with functional outcomes.

LONG WINDOWS When Kenny developed his modular plans for the house, this long slim ‘slice’ of a window was part of his repertoire of window and door options. It is a device he has used four times throughout the house, enabling glimpses of the outdoor spaces. Kenny feels he is of a generation that ‘worked inside out, rather than outside in’, and this is one of the ways in which he draws the eye outside to a view. The windows have sliding glass panes and are situated downstairs along the kitchen bench and at the rear of the living room, and upstairs in the main bedroom and studio-study.

DOORS It is a house without passages, and connecting doors are kept to a minimum. Whether they are hinged or sliding, the construction of the doors is consistent. Kenny wanted to create more interest than the conventional flat panel and decided to make a feature of the bracing and leave it exposed. Laminated treated radiata pine was the primary timber used in the door joinery. The effect is one of honesty and a certain refined vernacular rusticity.

LETTERBOX In keeping with Kenny’s ability to combine the functions of a house with a clear design integrity, the letterbox also houses gas and water metering and space for the rubbish bin. Reflecting the roof line of the house, but in reverse, it is a rather endearing ‘mini-me’ when viewed from the street. It is also a logical place for the number of the house to be clearly visible. While it has been called a post-modern statement, Kenny sees it as a ‘commonsense solution to practical concerns’.

AALTO STOOL The model 60 stool was designed in 1932 for the Viipuri Library by Alvar Aalto, the highly acclaimed Finnish architect and designer. In the 1930s, Aalto developed a technique for bending solid timber which involved making precise cuts at the point of bending. This simple three-legged stool solved the problem of additional seating plus worked perfectly as a side table. Also, the stools stack in a lovely spiral pattern and so add sculptural good looks to a room even when not in use. They are still available with tops in black or red linoleum, white or grey laminate or a natural birch veneer, produced since 1935 by Artek, Aalto’s own company whose name was coined from the combination of ‘Art’ and ‘Teknology’.

BATHROOM MIRROR Kenny used celery top pine for all wet areas, including the shower recess, and treated the wood with a two-pack Estapol finish. In the 30-plus years he has lived here, he has only sanded and recoated the wood in the bathroom three times. The hinged mirror has a recessed cupboard behind it and the design of the frame, with its rounded edges, was de rigueur for the Seventies. The original taps were laboratory ones chosen for their basic functional and industrial look. Recently they had to be replaced with very similar looking taps but with improved hydraulic performance. A rectangular laboratory sink has been set into the wooden bench.

The Collins House as seen from Sydney’s Mosman Bay. Built in an area typified by Federation red brick houses, the Collins House stands out with its clean modernist lines and fibreglass construction. The staircase, designed in steel with fibreglass treads, connects the entry level of kitchen, dining and living areas with the bedroom level below.