The Butterfly House
A soaring marvel metamorphosizes in Sydney.
Print
Email
Bookmark
ShareDecember 1, 2006
The winged wonder, its curvaceous glass skin sparkling in the Sydney sky like the star of India, is called, simply, the Butterfly House, a fanciful appellation that doesn’t begin to do it justice. The 5,800-square-foot structure, set as it is in a sedate suburb of square brick houses overlooking the harbor, looks more like a spaceship that has landed on the wrong planet than an Australian birdwing that has alighted to sip the nectar of the swollen, ball-shaped blooms of the golden wattle.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
“Several cars have driven off the road while their drivers were
craning their necks to see it,” says Ed Lippmann, the award-winning Sydney
architect who designed it. (Click image to enlarge)One of those drivers was vintage race car collector Michael Canturi, who fell in love with it when it was only half finished and decided to take the lovely lepidoptera under his wing. “I used to live down the road, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it,” says Canturi, who owns a construction business. “I love cars and architecture, and I knew that this would be the ultimate house.”
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
The glittering gem, forged out of concrete, steel and curved, frameless tempered glass, took nine years to emerge from its clear chrysalis. A tour de force of design and engineering, it has a pair of glass wings—one for the bedrooms, the other for the public rooms—that look like those of the insect that inspired its nickname.
In addition to two floors and a full basement, the Butterfly House has a roof terrace and a 12-car garage for Canturi’s favorite wheels, which in-clude a 1967 750 Moretti Sportiva and a 1973 Dino Ferrari GTS.
Lippmann, who drew up preliminary plans for the house in only one evening, is the first to admit that it is a flight of fancy. “It is quite different from anything I have ever designed and is completely unique because of its shape. And it has features that, as far as I am aware, have never been done in Australia before,” says Lippmann, whose firm was a finalist in the East Darling Harbour Masterplan competition and who has designed a number of prominent buildings, including Sydney’s Andrew “Boy” Charlton Pool and its King George V Recreation Centre. “Technically, it was not simple to build.”
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
The Butterfly House’s state-of-the-art features include free-form curved glass doors that stack like a deck of playing cards against its transparent skin, made of frameless, silicone-joined glass; a natural ventilation system that utilizes profile-cut grilles set low to catch cool air and electrically operated glass louvers in the stair turret to vent hot air through the top level of the house; two-inch-thick radiant-heat flooring that includes a custom-molded terrazzo island in the kitchen that looks as though it and the floor are of a single piece; and curved floor-to-ceiling cabinetry made of metallic silver-sprayed polyurethane. “A lot of these ideas just evolved,” Lippmann says. “We were testing these things. My design was quite surreal, and I didn’t know how it would be built. The Butterfly House has become a landmark in the city and a showcase for the glass industry in Australia.”
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
The sweeping terrace. (Click image to enlarge)Inspired by the celebrated Sydney Opera House, which can be seen from its walls of windows, the Butterfly House is Lippmann’s first organic design, and it simply fluttered into his head. “The original client wanted a house that wasn’t square. It turned out to be a real gem, and it created a new direction in terms of the way I think. The Butterfly House will be my signature.”
The structure, which was designed to offer 360-degree views of the skyline, is composed of six split levels that create separate living areas. The rear, or east wing, accommodates the garage, children’s rooms and a master suite at the top level. The west wing holds the kitchen and dining room and, above them, the living room mezzanine.
Ed Lippmann
Lippmann Associates
http://www.lippmann.com.au/
+61.2.9318.0844 (Australia)
925.831.1661 (U.S.)
