Alcorn Middleton One to Watch
ONE TO WATCH
Joel Alcorn and Chloe Middleton’s Brisbane practice challenges the quintessential Australian suburban model.
Based in Brisbane, Joel Alcorn and Chloe Middleton of Alcorn Middleton draw on their experiences of other cities to design homes that respect local traditions while challenging the modus operandi.
In recent years Brisbane has experienced a healthy surge in its number of young, independent practitioners of architecture. Many of these practitioners have taken a linear path to practice, becoming successful progenies of the city’s well-established architects. Others, such as
Joel Alcorn and Chloe Middleton, have followed a less conventional route. Since graduating with their Masters of Architecture from Queensland University of Technology in 2012, Joel and Chloe have independently pursued several ambitious international projects, including a resort in the Philippines and a house extension in Spain. Following the completion of a practice-defining Brisbane project, Peakaboo House, the pair established Alcorn Middleton Architecture Office in 2019. Peakaboo House embodies an architectural philosophy that Joel and Chloe describe as “polite and radical at the same time.”
While it is not unusual for early-career architects to find their feet renovating and extending a family member’s home, few engage in the opportunity to challenge the patterns of suburban development so intensely. Peakaboo House was born from a need to improve the longevity and functionality of the Middleton family home, in which Chloe has lived her 30 years with her mother and father. But the project has also served a broader purpose, becoming a model for the sustainable reimagining of suburban Brisbane.“We see it as a new typology, addressing the need for suburban densification while preserving an existing lot and an existing house,”Joel says.“We also wanted Peakaboo House to be an example of how to repurpose the Brisbane backyard.”
The multigenerational house and studio project wraps a two-storey, L-shaped extension around a threebedroom postwar house. The transformation allows Chloe’s parents to stay in their home and community as they age while Chloe and Joel – who are partners in life as well as in architecture – can establish a ground-floor architecture studio and an upper-level apartment on the same site.
The idea to stay and extend rather than sell up and build elsewhere was heavily influenced by Chloe’s South-East Asian roots. “Each time we have returned to the Philippines to visit my mother’s family we have found that the original house has been adapted and extended to suit the changing household,” Chloe says. “It made us think about how similar ideas could be adapted here through experimenting with the flexibility and adaptability of a house as well as the interdependency and independence of its occupants.”
Drawing inspiration from other cultures has helped Joel and Chloe, who both consider themselves “outsiders” in Brisbane, to evolve and challenge the quintessentially Australian suburban model. “While we are very mindful of the traditions of the city, we are not obsessed with what has come before,” explains Joel, who hails from northern New South Wales. Chloe, despite her close ties to Brisbane, is equally interested in finding an expression that is sensitive to and yet challenges the Brisbane modus operandi. “We are still looking for our own architectural language but, as it emerges, we are trying to be guided by the project and the brief, rather than be tied to the expectations of what it might or should be,” Chloe says.
Building strong connections to nature while engaging the broader community through architecture is another guiding principle of Alcorn Middleton’s work. At Peakaboo House, landscape is used cleverly to maximize a sense of separation between the two dwellings on the site and to improve the outlook and thermal comfort of the interiors. Architectural form and material expression are curated to engage the community while championing the existing street trees. “We always want to make an impact from the street,” Joel says. “Whether it’s something bold or something quite polite, we want passers-by to stop and think about what is going on inside.” At Peakaboo House the laneway edge is imagined as a backdrop to the street trees. “There’s so much drama in the shadows cast by the trees on the facade,” Joel says. “We like the theatre that architecture can bring to the street and the change it can bring to the city.”
Drawing inspiration from other cultures has helped Joel and Chloe to evolve and challenge the quintessentially Australian suburban model.