Residential Development in Melbourne, Australia

Antonino Cardillo architect was selected among the thirty best new young architectural practices from around the World in 2009 Wallpaper* magazine Architect Directory , his design works are currently exhibited at 4th International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam and his project was selected as one of ten architectural wonders of 2008 by USA's Almanac of Architecture & Design 2009. Over the past three years his projects have met with great critical success and his bibliography contains more than fifty publications in international magazines and books. His latest project is called "Concrete Moon House" and it is a home for family in Melbourne: Identity and difference Concrete Moon House, Melbournem Australia 2009 Antonino Cardillo Site area: 791 m2 Building size: 580 m2 (200 m2 basement) Storeys: 2 + 1 basement Secretly, everyone is attracted to what he is afraid of and sometimes fear reawakens desires that cannot be confessed. We remain perturbed, recognising that in remote parts of our interior universe resides an apparent otherness. We discover that the concepts of identity and difference are ambiguous, and often, paradoxically, difference becomes an extraordinary instrument of investigation into our own identity. Two distinct parts of a dwelling here become a pretext for telling a story between two diverse formal identities. Constructed in a suburb of Melbourne on a rectangular plot, in plan the house is in two parts: one public which in elevation looks like the upturned keel of a boat or a funny concrete moon that emerges from the pool in front, whose design is characterised by its sudden deviation from the straight pathway; the other, private part takes the form of a long, narrow building set against the perimeter, which, through the progressive decomposition of its component parts, creates a portico open to the garden but closed to the car park. In being created in space, each of the two geometric identities retains an echo of a presumed common origin. Thus signs of one often appear in the other, though elaborated according to different processes. Therefore the strategy of occupying the space goes beyond the mere bringing together of the parts. Though diverse, the elements have a reciprocal relationship, and the sound of one resonates in the other; especially in the main large cave, where the achievement of this osmosis introduces doubt as to where identity finishes and where difference begins. Concrete Moon House images / information from Antonino Cardillo

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Andrew Maynard Architects

photograph: Peter Bennetts

Australian Architect Offices

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