An alteration and addition to an existing family house in Sydney’s Inner West. The priorities for this project were to preserve the memory of the existing house and the family history, to keep a highly textured palette, and to form a new central living and cooking area and sleeping spaces.

Careful design allowed for the existing ornate ceilings to be maintained despite a second-storey addition to the house. Special existing features such as a round ornate window are carefully removed and reused in the new design. The family’s precious objects are submerged in the wet concrete, sanded flat, and fossilised in there for the life of the building. A large double-height void space makes for a dramatically inviting main living space with a working space for a writer floating above. A material palette of internal face-brick, external corrugated metal, steel, and plywood creates an attractive and unique space that sits comfortably in its urban-residential context.

With a need for higher density living due to the high cost of property in Sydney, some planning controls were pushed to achieve extra space for the family and higher amenity in terms of cross-ventilation and sunlight.

Image credit: Visualisations Dickson Rothschild