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With the goal of retaining the Edwardian facade and neighbourhood character, this single-storey house renovation project for a family of six was a collaboration from the start. ‘We wanted to achieve a building that was an emotional experience,’ the client explained of their decision to contract separate and specific trades and craftspeople for each part of the build.
Bringing together environmental principles and a desire to learn and understand the building process, Architect Melanie Beynon’s task for this project was to ‘create a visually beautiful house, that was very tactile’. This is achieved inside and out, with raw cedar shingle and shiplap cladding wrapped around the home, and a saw-tooth roofline extending tactility beyond the eyeline.
‘The timber elements will silver in time, allowing the new extension to settle into its surroundings,’ Melanie explains.
The texture turns inwards, too, with reclaimed bricks and Tasmanian oak panels covering the walls and ceilings, left unfinished to highlight the wood’s raw qualities. Handmade Anchor Ceramics tiles and brass detailing bring artisanal warmth to the kitchen, while Melbourne-based craftspeople West Wood contributed a large amount of impeccable custom timber furniture and joinery throughout the home.
The pitched roof in the kitchen / dining area creates elevated volume and ‘an element of surprise when you enter the house’, as well as flooding the communal space with natural light. The central living hub also acts as a divider between parent and children’s living quarters, compartmentalising these private zones at opposite ends of the house.
‘We had enduring specific interest in materials, spatial volume, sonic conditions, natural and artificial lighting and how to achieve a feeling and ‘memory’ in the build,’ the client explains. ‘We wanted the human hand on our house.’
