High Street | Lineburg Wang

A tiny pre–1911 cottage on a tiny 253m2 site, the design works hard to find generosity.

The existing house is moved forward, a relaxation to all boundary edges enables enough space to construct one special room to the rear.

The project builds less in order to provide generosity on a constrained site – the special room remains flexible, void of any fixed walls or cabinetry that could dictate the permanence of the occupant’s routine.

The room is an empty square, serviced by a utility core, circumnavigated by a split-level stair. By removing obstacles, the special room is free, occupied only by loose furnishings, changeable. With doors open, the internal and external public space operates as a single volume, sharing the same brick materiality.

The project challenges the commonly prescribed room requirements of today’s homes, working with strategies of expanding constrained space to ensure the small site does not feel small.

Timber House | Mather Architecture

Timber House showcases how existing buildings with character and charm can be successfully transformed for modern family living. The 62 sqm extension and clever reconfiguration of functional spaces has brought new life to this 1970s home originally designed by Harkin & Ziersch Architects from Melbourne.

Existing features, including timber ceilings and clerestory windows, have been revived and celebrated, with new clerestory windows bringing in additional natural light and a soft illumination to the space. New timber flooring, joinery and ceiling linings result in a delightfully warm and comforting home. Expansive double–glazed windows capture views to outside and lush vegetation, while drenching the living areas with natural light.

Stage 1: new garage/workshop and a self–contained unit under the main home for multi–generational living or guests. Stage 2: master bedroom suite was constructed along with a reconfiguration of internal spaces. Stage 3: new kitchen, dining, and living areas featuring clerestory windows.

TERRACE HOUSE MIRAGE | ALCAMI ARCHITECTURE

The walls of this gem hold 150 years of stories frozen in time, now meticulously restored. Unfolding a narrative that defies spatial limits says Victor Alcami, Director of Alcami Architecture.

The fully openable ground floor with sliding panels transforms into an open space haven. A visionary design with outdoor elements inspired by Mediterranean vernacular architecture infuse cultural nostalgia, while elevated mirrors expand the space with an infinite perspective.

A love letter to Victorian terraces, the operable courtyard, a symphony of custom design, breaths fresh air. Sunlight dances, highlighting the natural finishes, while a vibrant orange bathroom promises indulgent selfcare. Sustainability whispers through repurposed materials and repaired walls, ensuring longevity.

Metallic finishes echo Chippendale’s industrial heartbeat, blending Modernism, Japanese seduction, and reminiscences from European interior design. Alcami’s style resonates with transitional mystery, offering an aspirational escape through art and architecture, inviting a desire for more tales from this poetic design journey.

Smith House | Fowler and Ward

Smith House is a project that celebrates, rather than reinvents an under–appreciated era of housing; the ubiquitous, brown brick, tiled roof, free standing suburban home.

Tucking in beneath the western eaves and dropping below the existing floor level, a modest 8m2 extension transforms the home. The design reorients the interior to its garden, bringing sunshine inside and opening up what was a highly segmented floor plan. Quality, not quantity of space is the priority.

Small interventions celebrate the home’s character and offer an alternative to the usual; paint, render or demolish. Tesselated tiles, amber glazing and diagonal timber cladding peek out from the front arches while recycled and reclaimed brown brick is celebrated in the extension, laid in stackbond to delineate itself from its predecessor. The project demonstrates how working within an existing envelope and embracing character results in a delightful way of living without rebuilding.

Six Chimney House | Vokes and Peters

Improving early twentieth century housing is a recurring project type which calls for an appropriate response to the specific and evolving societal, cultural, environmental and economic contexts.
The palette of the heritage–listed interwar bungalow was adapted and abstracted in the new works. Each trade is elaborated in the composition, in the manner of the arts and crafts movement.
The elevated ‘Street Terrace’ maintains the leafy character of the neighbourhood. By placing the new kitchen into the former front room, the social life of the family spills out onto the street terrace and enables one to feel a part of the city.
The ‘City Terrace’ is a private outdoor space that offers an unexpected place of prospect.
A façade of many windows sits in constant dialogue with the panoramic view of Perth CBD.
The ‘Sunken Garden’ is imagined as a cool, shady forest supporting biodiversity and idealising the presence of nature.

Lee House | Candalepas Associates

This is a reimagining of the traditional Watson’s Bay fisherman’s cottage. Responding to the heritage of the area, there is a recasting of a derelict fisherman’s cottage into a contemporary home of permanence

Whilst modest in size, the building provides all the needs to its inhabitants with a minimum of fuss, offering a sense of calm repose. Light, material, and form considerations guided the interior development, organized around a central off form concrete barrier. Initially presenting a wholly traditional facade from the street, the design subtly evolves into contemporary materials and forms along the sides, culminating in a contemporary at the rear.

From the interior a carefully considered sequence of spaces leads to an external landscaped patio from where the architecture of concrete, timber and steel characterise the building’s nature as an offering to those who will inhabit this work in the next few generations.

House in the City | James Allen Architect

Designed for a retiring couple leaving the country, the House in the City is a reimagining of the archetypal Adelaide villa. The heritage zoned house was extremely run down, with a leaky roof, rising damp, subsiding footings, cracked walls, family of resident possums and overgrown garden.

The alterations and additions, designed by the couple’s architect son, was organised around a new internal courtyard, defining the old and new parts of the house.

A new pavilion accommodating the living areas across the back of the house is a modern interpretation of the villa with its Dutch-gable roof and masonry construction. There are spaces that both blur and bridge the inside with the outside as well as the new with the old.

The transformative project breathes new life into the dilapidated old house and is a balancing act between continuity and change.

Finlay Street | Christopher Clinton Architect

The Finlay Street project centres on a heritage-listed utility structure, once part of 34 Hampden Road. Alterations feature a new living area, removal of an unsympathetic fit-out, and landscaping with a north-facing green ‘warm’ roof. ‘Portals’ with integrated joinery enhance functionality and selectively frame views in existing west-facing openings. The northern addition maintains the original floor level, integrating a green roof intentionally kept low. A ‘lantern’ roof section, set apart as a distinctive glazed form independent of the main building, allows light penetration, ensures privacy, and establishes a visual link with the original house. Internal improvements expose and preserve the original brick structure, replacing laminate flooring with Tasmanian oak, and introducing detailed timber joinery. Achieving a harmonious blend of contemporary living, conservation, and historical sensitivity, this project reflects a successful collaboration among architect, client, and builder. The delicate balance between heritage preservation, functionality, sustainability, cost, and aesthetics defines its success.

Ember | MRTN Architects

Two studios with a unified language but serve contrasting purposes, to work and not to work. One exercise and meditation space, that can also be used as a guest room. The other, a work and inspiration space for a writer and art director. There was a clear decision not to build an addition to the existing home, but to keep its original form and create private spaces that physically detached but visually connected. The purpose and inhabitant of each building help to determine its form; that they be separate but with a connecting space between.

Bookend Addition | Studio Heim

Bookending the front and rear of an existing mid–century Seidler inspired dwelling are two interventions that respect the original design. At the front, an under–croft area has been infilled to provide storage and a place for creative pursuits. At the rear, a contrasting two storey form holds new living and sleeping spaces.
Overcoming a challenging position on a wedge–shaped block, the new form is like a Tetris piece that hugs the existing dwelling whilst stepping to work with boundary setbacks. As a deliberate contrast to the existing dwelling’s cream brick, the new addition is clad in vertical Shou Sugi Ban, with a base of cream bricks, salvaged from a removed section of the rear façade, blending old and new together.
Bookend Addition is a light touch approach that enhances the dwelling’s liveability with a striking light–filled form that makes the most of its unique position adjacent bushland.