Type: Residential
Date: 2020
Location: Fairfield, Wurundjeri Country
With: Amanda Oliver Gardens
Photographs: Rory Gardiner
The renovation of this double fronted federation house uses a series of considered openings and a carefully positioned addition to maximise its size and feel through connection to outdoor spaces.
The original brick house at the front of the site, containing the bedrooms and bathrooms, maintains its solid enclosed feel, while in the middle of the site a new north facing central deck has been constructed on floor level to provide easy access to the outdoors from both the old and new parts of the building.
Responding to a flood overlay that prohibits building below the existing floor level, the new rear extension hovers above the ground plane with the backyard reached through a series of oversized concrete steps which double as seating benches. This timber and glass living pavilion opens to the surrounding landscape on three sides with a large sliding door adjacent to the dining table receding completely out of sight to maximise the views across the backyard towards two large peppercorn trees at the rear of the block.
The size of the addition is contained, instead prioritising orientation and flexibility. A single central living area functions as the communal space for family life which is supplemented and expanded by smaller secondary spaces (both indoors and outdoors) such as a den, study, deck and garden.
