Bourke St House
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project by: Chris Taylor
This project stems from a sudden exposure to the homeless peoples of Sydney after my own upheaval and "rootless-ness" when moving to the inner city from the suburbs. At its essence the project is a day shelter with kitchen and bathing facilities for the homeless men and women of Surry Hills. Sited on the Northern end of Bourke Street, this skid-row "house" seeks to accommodate the high traffic of vagrants congregating towards Taylor Square on a daily basis.
The brief calls for the elementary needs of man to be met in a non-judgmental and safe retreat-like space, one that welcomes those in need and does so without spectacle and public fanfare. This becomes manifest in the fluid and subtle extension of the streetscape into the building, guiding patrons into an interior crossroads whereby they are given the choice to bathe, eat, be clothed or simply retreat and sit in the terraced gardens that tuck away at the rear of the site.
Bourke St House doubles as a transitional housing compound for ten previously homeless residents; who live and work within for a twelve month period. This proposal investigates the complexities of domesticity and its suburban associations within a highly urbanized setting. An obvious point of investigation becomes apparent, what makes a home? Or, how do you design a temporary home, and still allow for ownership?
The design is highly ambiguous in its interpretation of the domicile. Complete with urban 'rooftop' farming, individual living plots and a complex network of interior streetscapes connecting them, it borders on campground and construction site whilst still revealing the uncanny commonplace of back-alleys and laneways that hide behind the city walls.
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