Vasey Crescent 25 Year Award
42, 44 and 46 Vasey Crescent: RAIA Citation
The following citation was prepared for the 1998 RAIA 25 Year Awards by architects Philip Leeson and Cassandra Kelleher for the ACT Chapter of the RAIA. It is reproduced here with their permission.
1998 RAIA 25 Year Award Citation
In stark contrast to the archetypal suburbia of Canberra are three houses in Campbell designed in the early 1960s by the partnership Grounds, Romberg and Boyd of Melbourne. The houses of 42-46 Vasey Crescent are unique firstly for their united appearance which is typified by a low key aesthetic, clean lines and cubiform shapes. Secondly, unlike the houses which surround them, they are notable for their careful planning as a group of houses with a considered relationship to their site.
At a time when the Academy of Science Building by Roy Grounds was under construction in Canberra, the first of the new landowners of Vasey Crescent approached Grounds asking if he would design a house for them. Admirers of the new Academy Building and having moved recently from Melbourne, the Blakers were well aware of Grounds’ work. On meeting them he accepted the commission saying,
had it been a mansion I would have refused, but a cottage I’ll accept.
The Blakers own taste for simple materials and their limited budget must have appealed to Grounds’ own sensibilities and his desire to develop an inexpensive and unassuming but sensible house type. Independently, the other two block owners also approached Grounds to design their houses: the Griffings at the suggestion of the Department of Interior, who were aware of his work for the Blakers, and the Phillips, also a Melbourne couple, from their own knowledge of the ‘good design’ of the partnership.
Thus, as much by chance as by good management, there arose an unequalled opportunity to design three houses for three individual families which would have the scope to be a harmonious composition within themselves.
In response to their varying position on the site and the individual needs of each owner, each house is original in its conception, however a consistency of style, form and materials ensures a unity across the three. The family resemblance between the three houses is heavily influenced by the use of concrete blockwork, slender balcony and roof supports and the deep spreading eaves of each of the flat roofs. Similarly the planning typology shares a common idea of open plan living space with a distinct separation between the children’s and parent’s areas of each house. In each instance all the children’s rooms open on to a common play/family area.
Of the three, numbers 46 and 42 have remained in the same ownership since completion and consequently hold the best preserved interiors. Importantly, in line with the Blakers original brief, the houses have not required significant maintenance since completion. Some interior innovations included folding screens as space dividers and opening panels above doors for ventilation. The interiors of the two houses which included fair faced blockwork, finely crafted timber panelling, window framing and matching joinery show a consistency of finishes rarely seen in new housing. Hints of the Academy interior can also be found including the same deep red tiles in one kitchen and the joinery work (including secret nailing) of the Academy of Science carpenters in another.
The staggered siting of the houses across the side of the ridge allowed uninterrupted views from each house north to Mt Ainslie and west towards the lake. In this way the striking vertical form of the Phillips house
a tower and not a cave
…was set back farthest from the street so that it did not dominate surrounding houses. With its strong formal composition, large areas of glazing and its open plan living and sleeping areas this house exhibits many aspects of the post war international style.
Influenced by his European travel and also by the strong Melbourne regional style which Grounds had helped to develop, the houses are in many ways typical of his unified rationalism, economical planning and a love of warm natural materials. It is notable, however, that due to the new commission Grounds received to design the Victorian Arts Centre Robin Boyd took over their management.
The three houses represent the strongest expression of housing designed by Grounds in Canberra. While other isolated examples exist, the clarity of the Vasey Crescent triptych in their conception and unity remain an outstanding lesson to architects and housing developers of the advantages of designing individual family houses together.