Tasmania
This 1920s cottage renovation and extension better connects the interior with the north-facing rear garden for a couple and their young child.
The well-loved cottage with double-fronted facade of white stucco and asymmetrical gables has an informal and endearing character.
The brief, delivered in a new extension which continues the cottage’s hipped roof, includes master-bedroom, ensuite, kitchen, dining, living, powder-room and laundry.
Plan and section are tightly worked to yield a playful arrangement of internal spaces of varying floor and ceiling levels, aligned with terraced courtyard and garden, and a discrete second storey master-bedroom and ensuite.
Demolition of the rear of the cottage connects the original interior to the garden and maximises daylight.
The extension, on the north-eastern quadrant of the site, opens to the luscious garden and courtyard. The interior softy shaded by an overhead pergola and external trellised green wall.
The Edith Emery Award for Residential Architecture (Alterations and Additions)
Pedder Street House comprises the significant transformation of a traditional bungalow on the high side of a North Hobart residential street.
The spatially modest additions extend in an origami-like shaping of the envelope, framing external garden areas and accommodating interior spaces of light and prospect. The resultant architectural richness belies the limited budget and conceptually simple extrusion of the existing roof form.
The plan evolves from an offset entry foyer in the existing house. Movement through the short, existing central corridor reveals a sequence of spaces that start to shift in level in response to the opportunities that the site and envelope present.
A generous point of arrival between the dining room, under the existing roof, and the new kitchen creates an informal place of gathering and redirection. With stepped edges, pausing or sitting here is natural yet unexpected.
The folding of floor levels and volume continues through the kitchen to the living space that expands vertically to the full height to the new roof line. Nestled into this section, a master bedroom suite is presented as a pale-toned and more dimly lit refuge from the daily life that operates below.
Pedder Street expertly connects interior spaces to a multileveled garden and overlaps and intersects internal spaces with a level of spatial confidence that is exemplary.”
Our house had space but rooms were disconnected. We needed direct access to the garden and the ability to be together but not on top of each other.
The extension brings pockets of space, volume, light and connects to the growing garden. It feels warm, welcoming, calm even with a chaotic 5 year old. We can be together but in our own zones.
It’s lofty but intimate. It’s pretty fancy and architectural, but it’s also informal (it’s not a shoes-off house).
We are excited to live in a house that evolves with us.
Shamus Mulcahy, Design Architect, Documentation Architect
Sophie Bence, Design Architect
Bek Verrier, Design Architect
Mike Renshaw, Architectural Technician
Aldanmark Consulting Engineers, Hydraulic Consultant
Aldanmark Consulting Engineers, Structural Engineer
Pudding Lane Building Surveyors Pty Ltd, Building Surveyor
The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia.
We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive.
We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.
