For over 25 years Helen and Christos Koustoubardis have been living the Australian dream in Monterey, NSW. They bought this large block of land, close to the beach to build their dream home to retire in, entertain family and friends and indulge in Christos’s passion for permaculture. Now as they grow older this large house is slowly becoming too big, however in an effort to downsize that same vision they had for their dream home needs to be maintained.
Sitting at the back of the property, Trellis Cottage is a simple and adaptable space exemplifying a sustainable permaculture based way of life. This linear timber clad and corrugated steel roofed cottage takes influence from the traditional vernacular cottages of the market gardens of Sydney. A steel trellis wraps the northern facade, blurring the lines between structure and the garden by providing shade and facilitating the development of vines and climbing plants. Being both a granny flat and a social space showing off the garden, this small cottage has the capacity for entertaining and teaching for family, friends and the local community. The flexibility of the spaces and joinery allows the cottage to easily adapt to changes in use and what its inhabitant require of it, transitioning from interior/exterior/public/private. Based on permaculture principles by Rosmary Morrow, the garden operates as a ‘closed system food forest’, restoring the garden that used to be however being more productive, easier and cheaper to maintain and resolving issues of irrigation.
This project explores the possibilities of the under-utilised housing typology of the granny flat and the leftover spaces in our suburbs. The design also illustrates the possibilities of sustainable architecture through permaculture, emphasising how garden and home can work in unison. In combining these ideas, what is established is a new, sustainable and adaptable approach to secondary dwelling construction that can fill the gap of ‘the missing middle’ in Australia’s housing market’.
