05
06
McMahon, whom Anna had worked with
previously during her time at Kieron Gait
Architects, fastidiously built and detailed
this functional and beautiful element.
The joinery marks the new parts of the
apartment, with existing elements painted
white. The view to the garden and warmth
of the timber gives the atmosphere of a
standalone house within the confines of
an apartment.
Anna has a few other residential projects
in the process of being built (at the time
of writing), including the Goskar Avenue
House, which has been designed for a family
of four. Anna describes this home as “a
refined shed,” where she’s aimed to celebrate
inexpensive materials and to embrace the
garden. The clients for this house are aligned
with Anna’s belief that “something beautiful
can be made with humble materials and you
don’t need large spaces to live comfortably.”
01 Architect Anna O’Gorman.
02 A paper necklace made
from hand-cut section
drawings for the Design
and Architecture Practice
Research Exhibition in
July 2017.
03 The warmth of the timber
joinery at the Beaumont
Apartment renovation,
designed in collaboration
with Brit Andresen, gives
the feeling of a standalone
house. Photograph: Anna
O’Gorman.
04 The detailing of the
Beaumont Apartment is
considered and precise.
Anna’s overarching philosophy is
concerned with the way that architecture
can make better communities, at all
different scales. Her commended entry in
the Queensland Government’s Density and
Diversity Done Well open ideas competition
involved co-housing communities achieved
through establishing hierarchies and defining
territories. The units were to be prefabricated,
with options for each to be adapted over time
to suit a variety of household types and sizes.
Anna’s most significant work to date is
the Northshore Pavilion, which “expresses
the idea of a temporary building as a
landmark.” The pavilion was designed both
for public amenity and as a vehicle for
Economic Development Queensland to share
information about future plans for Hamilton
Reach, a masterplanned community in a
waterfront urban renewal precinct. The
project evolved throughout the process – asAnna explains, “the initial brief was for a
mundanesolution,butaswedugabitdeeper
andaskedafewmorequestions,itgotmuch
more interesting.” Although conceived as a
temporary building, it wasn’t to be discarded
afteritsinitiallife;rather,itneededtobe
designed in a way that would allow it to be
easily dismantled and reconstructed elsewhere.
Theteamusedwharftimbersalvagedfromthe
site,contributingtoabuildingthataimstobe
authentically of its place.
Projectbyproject,AnnaO’Gormanis
makinghermarkinQueensland.Continually
testingnewideasandexperimentingwith
standard materials, Anna hopes to make good
design available to a much broader range of
socioeconomic groups. This is clearly evident
in her completed work across a variety
ofscales,aswellasinotherexciting
investigations underway.
annaogorman.com05 A render of the Goskar
Avenue House, a project
that aims to celebrate
inexpensive materials and
to embrace the garden.06 Anna’s commended
entry in the Queensland
Government’s Density
and Diversity Done Well
open ideas competition
was about co-housing
communities through
establishing hierarchies
and defining territories.
Image: Lucid Image.