Undertaken by Partners Hill with Hogg&Lamb
“At Mermaid Multihouse, Partners Hill with Hogg and Lamb found a way to bring out the unique qualities of otherwise standard building materials: wood, steel and concrete ‘H’ blocks. The Gold Coast duplex is designed to maximise privacy and maintain a separateness between the two adjacent residences. Grey concrete blocks cover the entire face, stacked in porous configuration so that the round hollows face the street, and pinned and stiffened with a steel frame in accordance with contemporary engineering standards. This dense yet open wall is put to use as a sun shade and privacy screen for the front-facing windows. A lightweight parapet cost-effectively caps the walls and slides away to form the less apparent and comparatively mute side walls. The plan of the duplex is arranged with ingenuity. A party wall separates the double height exterior arcades, rather than interior rooms. This gives independent access to various rooms and a moderated, glare-free outdoor space while also allowing the interior rooms to cross ventilate. The general experience, coupled with the porous facade, is of permeability and a sense of never being definitively inside or outside.”
Text by Sam Marshall, The Breeze Block Book, Uro Publications 2019
