Hawksburn House
Traditional Custodians: Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation
Location: South Yarra, Victoria
Floor Area/Land Area: 215sqm/235sqm
Situated on a corner site in sleepy Hawksburn (Melbourne), this new build navigates the dichotomy of two frontages. With a broad Western frontage, apertures are restrained to provide privacy and thermal protection, further bolstered by the existing Birch trees.
To the North, the living spaces open up and are afforded privacy with a deep setback and raised ground floor terrace.
Materials have been limited to those which have been used to build houses in this area for the past 170 years. Brick walls, timber windows, terracotta tiles and steel ornament and columns to the front verandah reimagine the typology of the neighbourhood.
"The district of Hawksburn is named after Hawksburn House, one of the earliest houses in the area. The house, built near here in 1851 for James Cassell, the Collector of Customs, stood on a large estate of approximately 52 acres. The name is said to be derived from Cassell's sighting of a hawk in a wet gully (called a "bur-rn" in Scotland) on his property.
The main part of the estate was subdivided by Cassell's widow, Martha, around the time that the Gippsland railway line came through in 1879."
- City of Stonnington. A Place In History.
