The Willow Street residence, perched on the hillside of the Merri Creek precinct surrounded by mature vegetation and bushland. For a suburban block within an inner-city location, the property provided a rare opportunity to nestle within and celebrate a setting with rural feel.
Essential sustainable and energy efficient design objectives were to utilize passive solar and energy efficient design principles to improve the thermal performance of the building fabric, increase daylight and air flow and utilize the established vegetation as well as new structures to passively shade the north facing rear yard.
The home celebrates the original Californian Bungalow detailing and form, while effortlessly integrating industrial and modern tones, textures and simple forms. The result, a welcoming, warm home, surrounded by the earthy and urban tones of timber, recycled red bricks and rusted steel, embracing its natural surrounds, and providing purpose to all spaces.

Photography: Mark Farrelly Photography

Warehouse Greenhouse is about the past and the future. It is a story of industrialisation and human occupation, and an attempt to reconcile these with the natural environment. This project is about doing more with less, it’s about giving more than it takes and signals the possibility of a simple, elegant path to a sustainable future.
The home is built to Passivhaus standards, is extremely air-tight with only 1.2 air changes per hour, and uses passive solar design to maximise sun penetration in winter and shade the interiors in summer. It has a highly thermally efficient envelope, is cross-ventilated and harnesses the existing buildings thermal mass.
It has high performance, double glazed tilt-and-turn windows, which were installed inside the existing glazed openings – essentially adding a third layer of glazing with a large cavity (making this a triple glazed dwelling). Incredibly, there is no active heating or cooling in this residence, instead, it solely relies on the tight thermal envelope and the HRV system.
Materiality took precedence over form and ethics came before aesthetics. Remnants of the existing building are preserved and expressed revealing its imperfections and years of layered wear. Prioritising the longevity of the existing warehouse, the project is a simple, contextual extension built using as many reused, repurposed materials as possible.

Photography: Tom Ross

The Snug successfully converted a run-down, dark, poorly insulated and ‘inward looking’ two bedroom, one bathroom Californian Bungalow into an energy efficient, comfortable and healthy home in inner Melbourne.
The footprint of 99m2 consisted of a series of separate rooms and lean-to structures that were in need of substantial maintenance. A comprehensive site analysis including shadow studies informed the siting and massing for passive solar design. The design process explored multiple layouts for the building to test possibilities and ensure the chosen design was the best response to the brief, the surroundings and the climate.
The solution resulted in a gorgeous small-footprint home that significantly improves the solar orientation, thermal performance, comfort, daylight, ventilation, views and connections to the outdoors, whilst preserving the existing streetscape and built form heritage of the neighbourhood, and not using tonnes of new materials and land in the process.

Photography: Emma Cross Photographer

South Yarra Townhouse is a reset, realignment and reinvigoration of a cumbersome and wasteful 1990s era townhouse. Angled walls drawn on a designer’s whim made valuable floor space unusable and created awkward angles.
The design of the walls and joinery, and their calm white finish, allow daylight to penetrate deep into the home, reducing the need for artificial sources. Single glazing has been replaced with double glazing to increase the thermal inertia of the building envelope, minimising heat gain in summer and heat loss in winter. Lighting and appliances have been carefully selected for energy efficiency. In short, no effort has been spared to make this a durable, beloved and sustainable home.

Photography: Tatjana Plitt

Sky House provides a broad view of sustainability, incorporating: creating connections to nature that are underpinned by adaptability and flexibility; through its dynamic response to predicted changes in climate; and by considering future changes to the family’s composition.
As a result, interior spaces can easily be reconfigured to accommodate the family’s evolving needs, while the external skin of the building adjusts to mitigate variations in climate.
Our clients’ request for a beautiful and functional house – one that is serene, robust, sustainable and flexible – is addressed through planning and material selection. The plan creates a central area connected to, but separated from, private areas, allowing individuals to retreat or engage as desired.
For example: the children enjoyed sharing a bedroom, so they now occupy three spaces connected via large sliding panels, with individual window cubbies for sleeping. This design encourages them to negotiate their desired levels of privacy or community, and be responsible for creating their own specific environments.

Photography: Brett Boardman

The Deck House is the Alteration and Addition of an early 1900’s Timber Weatherboard Cottage in Suburban Sydney.
The orginal house was full of character yet dilapidated to the rear and did not take advantage of the North facing rear garden.
The design removed a rear wing housing a Dining room, Kitchen and
Bathroom and replaced it with an L-Shaped addition with a Dining Room, Kitchen, Bathroom, Laundry and Living Room around a new timber deck to capture the Northern light and provide privacy and screening from the neighbouring commercial buildings at the rear.
The concept was underpinned by a philosophy of modestly, innovation and re-use of materials.

Photography: Sophie Solomon

This tiny Victorian miner’s cottage in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Brunswick East has been transformed by much-needed additions and alterations, including a new second-level parents’ retreat and generous new living spaces on the ground floor. Finding a dwelling of this era with no significant changes is extremely rare.
A small courtyard along the north boundary was built to bring in as much natural light as possible to the living spaces. It also allows daylight into the existing bedroom, a new bathroom, and kitchen, and provides great ventilation and thermal comfort for sustainable urban living. A small void to the stairs bathes the seated living area with light from the first-floor glazing at certain times of the day.
The design meets modern expectations of dwelling while celebrating the home’s humble heritage.

Photography: Dave Kulesza Photography

The original residence had been left in a state of disrepair over the last 50 years and without heritage or planning protections was destined for demolition having been sold with a building report recommending as such. Art House began as an exploration in restoration, re-use and recycling through the use of natural, local materials re-imagined by local craftsmanship.
Priority was given to retaining the character of the original Victorian residence. External weatherboards and Victorian detailing remained in-situ, Baltic pine floorboards, skirting boards, architraves, doors and windows were retained and re-used. The walls, floor and ceiling were all heavily insulated and existing windows re-glazed, elevating the residence to exceed current standards.

Photography: Emma Cross