Ivanhoe – Interior Renovation – in association with Jane Cameron Architects
Our clients purchased the property in January 2019. Designed + built as one of Australia’s first examples of architect-designed multi-generational homes in 1962-1964 by Melbourne architects Guilford Bell + Neil Clerehan, during their short-lived 18-month partnership.
The house was an understated and unassuming set of two dwellings on a north/south block adjacent to the landscape of Darebin Creek.
Coincidently, Robin Boyd’s Featherston House (another multi-generational home) is located a few streets away. Originally designed for a multi-generational family consisting of grandparents in the single-storey dwelling closer to the street and the daughter, son-in-law and two children in a two-storey dwelling further done the slope. The house remained in the family during the previous half century, with its subdued rectilinear forms of grey Besser brick and dark timber infill details, the full height French doors open to the front garden + rear courtyard, a classic Bell design device, with the spatial arrangements, the extensive timber joinery and clever period kitchen devices being the Clerehan influence.
The ‘hatch’, a small timber lined cupboard that sat in between both dwellings held the two telephones for grandparents and family, and this location became the new pivot by which the ‘join’ could take place.
A new terracotta tiled entry was created, wrapped in limed oak, that allows access from the upper dwelling consisting of a new living/sitting room with one guest bedroom, a bath and study.
In the lower dwelling the existing kitchen was relocated to face the decked exterior and garden, allowing for a laundry/storage area behind the new white laminate + timber detailed joinery wall.
A small existing powder room was revamped, new lighting and heating completed the transformation.
Overall, the interventions were minimal and well considered because of Bell + Clerehan’s timeless and modernist original design.
Blairgowrie – Interior Renovation –
A renovation to an existing beachside holiday house that added a contemporary take on ‘Hamptons-style’. Updating + creating a low maintenance holiday home paired back with a sense of comfort + style.
Thornbury – Alteration + addition to an inter-war home –
Project Type: Alteration + Addition
Period: Interwar/modified
Photographer: Jack Lovel
Tetris/Tetra “An endeavor involving rearranging things of different shape into a physical space. “ noun. From the Greek – tettares, meaning four A family of four (+ a doggo)Â Four new rooms. Four different materials.
We transformed an inter-war timber home by keeping the front four rooms as they were, editing the small original family bathroom + adding the four spaces to the south or rear of the block. Northern light enters through two pop-up clerestory roof lights that can be opened to allow a thermal chimney to disperse hot air in summer.
A small central deck sits between the existing home and the addition.
Rosebud -Interior alteration to a 1990’s coastal home
Project Type: Interior renovations
Period: 1990’s Spec home
Photographer: Jack Lovel
Stylists: Rhiannon Orr + Mel Hasic
Our clients had purchased the home over 20 years ago and were keen to revamp its interior and create a more contemporary family home. A cooks kitchen was re-designed on the upper floor, with a pantry created out of a redundant hallway. Warm walnut joinery offers a contrast to the crisp white cabinetry.
Composite stone benches for the island and cooking areas and a low height breakfast bar. The bar was given an overhaul and hidden from view via ‘brise-soleil’ walnut veneer fins and shelving. Finally, a main family bathroom with a feature wall of cracked feature tiles. New stairs and under stair storage solve the age old renovation problem.
Toorak -an interior alteration to a Burley Griffin small home. in association with Jane Cameron Architects + Sam Cox Landscaping.
Project Type: interior Alterations
Period: 1920’s / modified
Photographer: Jack Lovel
Stylists: Without Studio (Mel Hasic + Sarah Shinners)
Landscaper: Sam Cox Landscapes
The ‘Burley’ or former Salter House is a single story family home designed by Walter Burley Griffin and built for Stanley R Salter in 1926. Built in a patented concrete masonry system, devised by Griffin, known as ‘Knitlock’, this modular cladding and construction system was lauded as an efficient way of building dwellings. The project is one of three remaining ‘Knitlock’ houses in Victoria.
The present owners bought the property in mid-2017 with a view to its restoration.
The brief was to allow the house to reveal itself through it’s unique structure, materiality and context. The response was to update the environmental and sustainable attributes of the original house through carefully considered interventions both internally and externally.
This was achieved by only doing what was necessary and retaining as much as possible. The small house now sits embedded in an indigenous landscape of soft edges, natural ponds and boulder outcrops.
7 Conifer Avenue Brooklyn VIC 3013 m > 0419 158 652 e >info@architecthewson.com