Eoghan Lewis Architects

“Somnium” transformed two derelict structures - a timber barn and project home - into a home and boutique eco-tourism development on an exposed headland site 5-hours south of Sydney.

Conceived as a site for special gatherings, yoga retreats, workshops and weddings - as well as the occasional weekender for themselves - ELA were engaged to design a house that would comfortably house 15 and offer an experience quite different to city living. The project had to embody the spirit of camping, of 'roughing it' but at the same time called for a kind of stripped-back, almost monastic decadence.

On the one hand, our approach was pragmatic. An old timber barn had fallen into disrepair which sat adjacent to an unfinished project home, and we reasoned that more could be gained by working with these structures than starting from scratch environmentally as well as economically.

Unlike many of our recent projects which have operated in a heritage context, it was liberating working with buildings that had little intrinsic value. The relative poverty of the existing structures allowed a more direct response where spatial and material qualities as well as landscape relationships were drivers. There is a single mindedness about our project that foregrounds precious aspects of the site to create an exhilarating living experience and not a series of contemplative set pieces or framed, detached views.

We kept what existing fabric we could. Interiors were gutted, roofs removed, holes cut as required and new material and functional layers added to create a family of pavilions linked by covered entry-ways and courtyards. A new concrete pavilion housing living spaces kinks to capture two distant views of Coila Lake whilst taking advantage of the northerly aspect. The intention is that guests will experience contrasting rhythms of enclosure and landscape as they pass from spaces with a dark and intense interiority through courtyard-rooms offering particular landscape relationships.

The key architectural elements are a family of spotted gum ‘glulam’ (glued laminated timber) beams, concrete ring beams that stabilise the old structure and create a new horizontal datum between pavilions, external-sliding spotted gum doors and screens and the new concrete ‘living’ pavilion.

sustainability
Electing to work with the two existing structures to reduce material usage and waste was key.

Roof forms were derived from a simple skillion roofed response to orientation; high-level north and north-west glazing that ventilates and bring in deep winter sun penetration.

The black concrete floor is a 90mm concrete screed sitting on 20mm of rigid foam insulation sitting on the existing slab. Because it’s black and has high thermal mass it holds the heat of the winter sun and re-radiate it through the night. The floor heats and also cools via in-slab hydronic pipes driven by electric heat pumps.

Other sustainable strategies include a 10KW PV solar array and 280K litre water harvesting and on-site sewage treatment. The house is fully electric. There is no gas.

The project is off-grid in terms of water and sewage and net positive regarding electricity.

Somnium at Bingie

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Jason Goh \ Nick Woolley

collaborators
Contractor: Luke Price - Flair Homes
Structural: SDA Structures
Hydraulic: PC Consulting Engineers Pty Ltd

awards
2023 AIA NSW: Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions) \ Shortlist
2023 Houses Awards - House Alterations & Additions over 200m2 \ Shortlist
2023 Houses Awards - Sustainability \ Shortlist

recent articles
The Guardian - Australia’s most sustainable homes of 2023

images
Matt Horspool

We have spent more than a year with our clients striving to unlock their sites potential and achieve a design that suits a young family’s living and sustainability requirements.

Unsympathetic additions will be removed with new works sitting beneath a simple roof that mirrors the site's fall. The relationship between new and old is one of counterpoint or complimentary opposition, an idea stolen from Utzon that we are exploring materially, formally, volumetrically as well as spatially.

Working closely with landscape architect Emily Simpson, the architecture is informed by context, landscape and topography. The entry corridor in the existing bungalow is extended into the addition and imagined as a ‘street’ connecting old and new punctuated by a courtyard garden and continued as a landscape datum - as if the original bungalow were surrounded by wild, native gardens. Additions cascade down the site creating a series of connected family spaces, floor levels informed by topography, each living space opening directly onto new garden spaces. The building steps back to the southern boundary maximising winter sun penetration and focusing attention on a verdant garden - imagined as a kind of family square or piazza.

development of the site as terrain.
Prioritising landscape is not an attempt to make architecture disappear. Rather, we hope its deployment is subtle and appropriate. Architectural forms are deliberately simple and elemental, the material palette durable and tactile - an attempt to imagine the house as enabler of landscape. Every aspect is calibrated to orient and attune the occupant and heighten these relationships. We hope that the house is as much a terrain or landscape metaphor as it is a building.

sustainability, family & community.
Our clients have four young children and are family, sustainability and community-minded. The existing garage and concrete driveway have been reimagined as a studio at the end of a meandering path through a native meadow. A large solar array invisibly provides the energy needs for a fully-electric home. Heating is via in-slab hydronic pipes; ceiling fans and the principles of passive design mean that no active cooling system is necessary. Windows and skylights have been designed in response to orientation and climate. 15KL of harvested water will be captured. A chemical and salt-free ‘natural pool’ is proposed in the yard filtered by aquatic plants. Along with the other landscape strategies this will promote biodiversity attracting bees, birds, frogs and other wildlife.

project team
ELA: Eoghan Lewis \ William Stever
Landscape: Emily Simpson Landscape Architecture
Civil & Hydraulic: Partridge
Structure: SDA Structures

status
DA-Approved (Inner-West Council). We are developing Construction drawings.

ELA were engaged to design a new amenities building and cricket club in Pearce Reserve, Blacktown, 30km west of Sydney.

The brief called for a robust cricket club and amenities building to serve the local cricket club as well as the broader community.

Functions were distributed between two adjacent pavilions, the larger housing a function room, canteen and toilets and the smaller housing ‘home’ and ‘away’ change rooms and storage. The pavilions sit side by side, addressing the oval and defining an in-between event space.

Experienced in-the-round, it was important that the pavilions have a sculptural quality and play with, but also against one another. Roof forms act as programmatic markers and poetic signifiers, each space finding poetic expression in response to need, ventilation, illumination and scale. The ‘chimneys’ allow the change rooms to breathe and dappled sunlight to enter which creates dramatic and surprising internal spaces befitting a public building. The relationship between pavilions becomes one of counterpoint - materially and formally.

A raised platform cuts into the landscape, grounding the building and creating an informal grandstand of bleacher seats. Above, a generous covered terrace maximises the functional possibilities for the cricket club, acts as a shading brim for spectators watching a game and provides the community with a space to gather and shelter.

Brick was chosen for its contextual familiarity, its robustness and economy as well the poetic opportunities it offers. By exposing the rough inside face of the bolster-cut bricks, texture, pattern and colour is introduced inviting a closer look. We love that the building’s decoration is implicit to its materiality and its construction in a simple and honest way.

Our hope is that the building performs well, weathers beautifully and is embraced by the cricket as well as the broader community. We also hope it feels local and familiar but a little strange and exotic at the same time.

Thanks goes to the ambitious and thoughtful Blacktown Council, Cricket Australia and the Parks Committee.

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“The tranquillity of the Kings Langley Cricket Club and Amenities is a delightful contribution to its community. Restrained, hardworking, humble and referencing its suburban Blacktown materiality and typology, the project makes no grand statements, but provides a beautifully crafted community building.”
—Jury citation, 2022 Australian Institute of Architects Awards. Kings Langley Cricket Club & Amenities—

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project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Jason Goh \ Nick Woolley

collaborators
Contractor: Dezign
Structural: SDA Structures
Hydraulic: PC Consulting Engineers Pty Ltd
Mechanical: Pace Consultant Engineering
Lighting: Lighting Art & Science

client
Blacktown City Council

photos
Keith Saunders

awards
2022 AIA NSW Award for Public Architecture
2022 AIA National Commendation for Public Architecture
2022 World Architecture Festival: Sport \ Shortlist
2022 World Architecture Festival: Small Project \ Shortlist

media
archdaily
architecture & design

After more that ten years of research on the design methodology of Jørn Utzon it was humbling but also a dream to be invited to work on this project - the design of a gallery / information centre and ticketing booths at Sydney Opera House.

Our approach was strategic. We looked deeply and listened carefully before engaging in a process of careful editing of years of unnecessary and unsympathetic work like signage, flagpoles, bollards and temporary structures that had accrued on the concourse of The House over decades. We considered the key relationships Utzon established in the 60’s and sought ways to make these relationships stronger through a series of discrete and concise architectural interventions.

For Stage one - ticketing booths - we proposed a family of free-standing structures we referred to as ‘top-hats’; circular bronze-ribbed structures that would be tied to the ground like tee-pees and could be re-positioned across the concourse at a series of pre-determined locations. They have a very small footprint but create a generous covered area creating presence and functionality with minimal intrusion. They are places of information and exchange but at the same time act as playful markers and meeting points; elements of urban furniture who’s structural immateriality acts in gentle opposition to Utzon’s heavy orthogonal platform and impossibly beautiful ‘clouds’.

Stage two introduced a new Visitor’s Centre buried beneath the concourse. Its hard-wearing neutrality means that the space can be put to a variety of uses from exhibitions to events. A circular oculus introduces light into a new courtyard, setting up an organisational strategy, an animating strategy whilst giving the space a quiet presence.

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Harry Catterns

Refurbishment and additions to a listed sandstone cottage in Tempe in Sydney's inner-west.

The site was once a quarry and the existing sandstone cottage 'Markinch' is one of several heritage-listed cottages on the street built by the same stone mason in the early 20th Century.

Design strategies were derived from a pragmatic mapping of site conditions, potential inside/outside relationships, adjacent building alignments and heritage restraints, coupled with our desire to add a bold and ecologically responsive layer. 

Insensitive additions were removed, demolished materials re-purposed creating a series of seating steps that mediate between the levels, elongate the courtyard and make stronger the connection between house and garden. Internal spaces were opened up and re-organised, realigning living spaces to the morning sun and the garden. Two new pavilions, one attached for living - the other a detached studio talk to one another but at the same time offer a poetic counterpoint.

Our wonderful clients describe 'Markinch' as their first and their last home. It doesn't look like much when you add up the square metres but it’s intimate, warm, performs well all year round and the home can be worn with the seasons like a favourite scarf.

footnote
This project began with an architect / client conversation about what might be possible given Inner West Council's position on heritage.

Our clients were initially fearful that nothing could be done. However, after studying the existing building and better understanding our clients ambitions as well as Council's concerns we were able to develop a simple and clear architectural strategy that in the end was supported by Council and celebrated as an example of a contemporary, appropriate and respectful approach to heritage.

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Kim Lange

publications
Monument \ House & Garden \ SMH Domain \ SMH Domain \ Architecture Australia \ Lunchbox Architect \ Archdaily \ Divisare \ Archello

awards
We were fortunate to pick up a number of Inner West Council and NSW architecture awards for this project including:
2013 Marrickville Medal - IWC \ Winner
2015 AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Alterations & Additions \ Commendation
2015 AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Small Project Architecture \ Commendation

collaborators
Builder: JAI Constructions
Structural: SDA Structures
Hydraulic: PC Consulting Engineers Pty Ltd

photos
Roger de Souza \ Eoghan Lewis

A visitor information and education centre and gallery pavilion in Mernda, Victoria that was designed to be disassembled, moved and reassembled or reconfigured on other sites.

This project is a development of the precast concrete system we developed for the Macarthur Gardens Education and Display Suite in NSW.

Like its predecessor, this building is temporary, moveable, re-erectable and the primary structural elements are all derived from three concrete forms. 

The challenge was to refine but also adapt the system to new site and client requirements whilst testing the system’s flexibility, robustness and possibilities for replication.

“Our Brief called for a structure that was temporary, transportable, ecologically ambitious and iconic so that it would stand out from its residential context. The architectural solution was innovative and imaginative and translated these ambitions to a degree we could not have anticipated.”
— Thom Wright. National Manager of Integrated Housing. Stockland —

publications
ArchDaily \ Architecture Australia \ Architecture Review Australia

photos
Shannon McGrath

This proposal for 23 condominium units is located on a sensitive and iconic coastal site in California. The design preserves 24 historic cottages whilst drawing inspiration from climate and context.

The massing is a simple arrangement of single-storey condominiums over two levels organised around four circulation cores with parking below. The pitched roofs create a playful interplay and lively backdrop to the historic cottages, accentuated by a zig-zagging screen wall that hides and naturally ventilates the car parking below.

Poetically, a quiet game of counterpoint is established between building and context which has material, formal, functional and historic dimension.

Seize the day!

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Berenice Melis

A small studio in Tempe, Sydney.

Our clients wanted a studio to house some tools and create a space for art. It needed to shield an unattractive neighbour, avoid the roots of a protected tree, let natural light in, continue the architectural language we developed for the house and have a day-time quietness but also a night time expression to add drama to the garden.

The south-western stud wall was treated as a piece of joinery, clad in a triple-skin of translucent polycarbonate that seals, insulates, provides informal shelving whilst bathing the interior in light. By day, the hardwood frame ghosts visibly through its skin. At night it becomes a lantern that animates the garden.

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Kim Lange

publications
Monument \ House & Garden \ SMH Domain 1 \ SMH Domain 2 \ Architecture Australia \ Lunchbox Architect \ Archdaily \ Divisare \ Archello

awards
We were fortunate to pick up a number of Inner West Council and NSW architecture awards for this project including:
2013 Marrickville Medal - IWC \ Winner
2015 AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Alterations & Additions \ Commendation
2015 AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Small Project Architecture \ Commendation

photos
Roger de Souza \ Eoghan Lewis

ELA was engaged to design a Visitor Information Centre that could be disassembled, transported and re-erected on future sites for re-use.

A wonderful brief! One of Australia’s largest developers (Stockland) wanted a portable and temporary pavilion from which they could promote and sell their latest residential development. The structure had to be ‘iconic’, stand out from its residential context and act as a tool to help educate potential customers in leaner, more sustainable ways of living. It had to be moveable at projects end which presented a series of specific design and engineering challenges. The project had to be finished in seven months.

Inspired by Jørn Utzon’s unrealised set of houses designed for his family plot on Pittwater in the 60's (Utzon's Bayview House), a precast concrete building system was developed that allowed the building to be manufactured from few moulds and assembled like a giant Lego set.

A family of repeating precast concrete panels create floors, walls and roof whilst dealing with issues of structure, insulation and drainage. The mode of making and logic of assembly is celebrated and expressed throughout, the building’s rawness, lack of adornment and direct response to sun, wind and function driving design decisions.

For us, this project was a chance to also address the issue of small-footprint, low-cost suburban housing. It proved a big success and Eco Prefab 2 was completed outside Melbourne soon after.

“Eoghan was great to deal with. Professional, competent and always willing to go the extra step to achieve a great result”
— Thom Wright. National Manager of Integrated Housing. Stockland. See Eco Prefab I —

epilogue
At projects end our original clients chose not to move it, but rather, give it away! We found some new clients - an environmental engineering couple - who were up for the challenge and had a large property in Tallong an hours drive from the site.

The building was re-designed as an off-grid home. Changes in use (from commercial to residential), climate (an elevated and exposed site), client, bushfire (BAL-29 bushfire zone), building performance and, of course, budget needed to be addressed.

A Development Application was sought and attained. The precast concrete roof, wall and floor elements, steel and hardwood doors and windows were salvaged and moved to the site ready for erection. A layer of insulation was added externally and the interiors were redesigned for living and not working.

Sadly, our clients never went ahead with the build and the property was sold some time later.

The bottom 5 images show the reimagined project.

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Hugo Moline

contractor
Built

images
Ian Tatton \ Eoghan Lewis

Refurbishment and additions to a bungalow in Kingsford, Sydney.

The design was driven by the steep sloping garden and the opportunity to get northern light into living spaces and courtyards.

status
Under construction

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Jason Goh \ William Stever

contractor
Steller Group

photos
Eoghan Lewis \ William Stever

A family of small public buildings for Snowy Valleys Council — consisting of a new public amenities and playground in Goldfields Park, Tumbarumba and a new public amenities and bird hide in Pioneer Park, Tumut.

goldfields amenities
The Goldfields amenities create a new high-ground earth berm, lifting the loos above 100-year flood levels. The base of the building sits on a red concrete ‘ground’ creating a hard-wearing seating condition to the path and a gently-sloping grassy berm that addresses the oval.

The materiality and architectural language was inspired by the timber tradition of the region as well the camping huts that dot Kosciuszko’s mountain trails.

We have tried to elevate these humble buildings to the nobility that the most public of all public buildings deserve! They are naturally-lit, naturally-ventilating, inviting and welcoming little buildings that help unlock their site for community use.

pioneer park bird hide
Our birdhide in Pioneer Park, Tumut borrows and subverts the formal and material language we developed for the loos. We hope this little folly appears from behind the aquatic plants like the shy and exotic little red-sheep member of the family that she is!

In collaboration with landscape architect JILA.

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ William Stever

Significant additions to a period bungalow in Wollstonecraft on the North Shore.

project team
Eoghan Lewis \ William Stever

status
In progress

Active playground, shelter and amenities upgrade for Coogee Public

Working closely with the Coogee Public School community of parents, we developed this scheme to transform a sloping bitumen surface into a horizontal play area and new public face for the school.

STAGE 1 carves out a horizontal playing surface for sport, play and gatherings of all types.

STAGE 2 links the existing buildings with the amenities and creates covered outdoor learning opportunities. The roof kicks up when it hits the lower building in response to the lovely brickwork above the entry. The red ‘socks’ acknowledge the place where the timber columns hit the ground and where kids will swing round the mitred corners.

STAGE 3 upgrades the existing amenities to make them accessible, naturally ventilated and naturally lit. The painted ends on the purlins protect the end grain and add a playful touch – it’s a primary school playground after all! The smaller amenity structure will have unisex ambulant and accessible toilets which creates opportunities for community and after hour use.

team
Eoghan Lewis

status
The Department of Education took this project over in 2021 and we have had no involvement since. Direct all enquiries to the school.

ELA have been commissioned to design an off-grid house in Kangaroo Valley that will sit in a paddock backing onto native bushland on three sides, with distant views to Bugong National Park and Cambewarra Range.

Over the past ten years, our clients have dedicated themselves to planting native trees and re-establishing wildlife corridors developing a deep appreciation for this remarkable piece of land.

The house must operate off-grid so our main design challenge has been working within the confines of a BAL-29 (Bushfire Attack Level 29) zone which limits sunlight during the winter months.

This projects drivers are family and friends, environment, performance and landscape.

project team

Eoghan Lewis \ William Stever

Refurbishment and additions to a weatherboard cottage in Annandale in Sydney's Inner West.

status
Live project

A coffee table that opens, and closes and opens...

Architectural practice has a particular rhythm. It is often frenetic but there are also lulls when projects like these get some oxygen. Truth is, they’re something of a distraction - but that doesn’t make them any less fun!

The EL2 Coffee Table takes its design cues from objects like bicycles, sailing boats or clockwork; each an example of organic design where the form of the object as well as its decoration are an expression of and implicit to its operation and performance.

When the coffee table is closed, all the clues about its operation, its possibilities as well as its construction is there. Intuitively one understands how this table works and why it looks like it does.

The opportunities for architecture are not related to scale. In fact, the smaller the project the more deeply you can direct your gaze.

This 50% (1:2 ) prototype works along similar lines to other primitive furniture we’ve designed. The intelligence is embedded in each individual element and the fine tolerance afforded by CNC-routing means unskilled labour can quickly put it together. It’s a Lego set, a kit of parts cut from pre-finished plywood sheets.

Models in our studio are a means to an end. They are precious because they inform the design and its construction by revealing things that hadn’t been and couldn’t be considered otherwise, helping us refine what is yet to come; inform what is becoming.

This model feels more prototype than model and is a development of a 1:3 laser cut model and other smaller balsa and cardboard studies before that. With each step in scale, problems emerge, lessons are learnt and issues addressed.

We love this one. A little impractical perhaps, but perfect for the household with really fat cutlery.

A table and chair for a three-year old girl.

With my family overseas, I decided to solve our real and imagined domestic issues the only way an architect can - through joinery. A chair and table for my daughter Elsie, a queen bed for mum and I and a daybed in the kids bedroom. At the time we rented our apartment so everything was designed for easy disassembly and there had to be very minimal skill required to put it together.

All the elements were designed for CNC-routing which means that what is drawn in the computer is cut with digital precision so elements slot neatly together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The only binding elements are two leather ties that keep the ‘ears’ on, a homage to SANAA’s Mini Armless Chair. From time to time it becomes something of a three-dimensional puzzle whilst at other times it’s a legal case waiting to happen. Bruises are how kids learn after all!

Six-years later it has become the most loved item of furniture in our house - by dad at least. My daughter likes the booby-trap nature of it; if you don’t pick it up the right way then - hey presto - it falls apart.

The practice offers architecture tours in Sydney, guided by architects, through our side-project the Sydney Architecture Walks.

Much of our understanding of people, place, architecture and construction has been gained through researching and conducting architecture tours and in particular studying the work of Opera House architect Jørn Utzon. This works for us in a conceptual as well as a literal sense but also serves to deepen our understanding of architecture in relation to the city and the projects that define and activate our public and private realms.

Eoghan founded the Sydney Architecture Walks in 2000, the same year he formed his first studio - Supple Design. The tours have been running in parallel with practice ever since and operate as the quasi-research wing of practice.

Aimed at the level of the 'design-inclined', conversations lurk beneath a guise of informality, each tour driven by a set of themes and threads that attempt to decode the city whilst stimulating new ways of thinking about and seeing Sydney.

We invite you to join us on a tour. It's a great way to meet, talk architecture and get a sense of what drives us as designers and as citizens of this great city.

walking, guiding and architectural practice
As an architect who guides, I often frame the tours we do as a kind of public research project; the public side of private practice. But this is disingenuous and devalues the contribution guiding makes to practise. So how does guiding relate to practise; how does guiding sharpen our work as architects? Read more here.