Fitzroy North House

The strategy for the project was a straightforward one: to preserve the integrity of the front half of the terrace and demolish the lean-to at the rear. The two bedrooms making up the front portion of the house would be converted into a main bedroom plus ensuite and stair, while the rear would provide a new light-filled kitchen, dining and living space, with two more bedrooms and a study on the floor above. The challenge was to include these functions on this small block in a manner that allow for degrees of separation between family members, that enabled the articulation of different zones and that allowed some control over their distinction.

The insertion of a glazed courtyard into the guts of the extension provides the main solution, acting as a kind of valve that mediates between the kitchen, dining and living spaces on the ground floor and the bedrooms of the clients' two daughters above. On the ground floor, glazed, fully retractable doors enable visual continuity between the kitchen, dining and living areas. This visual connection can be enhanced by opening the doors or, alternatively obstructed with courtyard plants [2].

Words by Marnie Morieson, Houses Magazine