When the current owners purchased their Brunswick home on a corner site, it was a very simple cottage with dated additions, that was only really suitable for a couple.

Over time, their needs evolved, with two children and regular working from home days now in the picture. After 10 years, it was time for a major renovation.

The owners engaged new architecture practice Office Fora to redesign the house as their first-ever project.

The founding directors, Alexander Wright and Stephanie Poole, listened intently to the family’s needs and desires, devising a subtle reworking of the original bedrooms, before adding a two-storey addition to provide more space and connect better to the outdoors.

‘Typical of cottages of this era, it originally had an outdoor bathroom, which at some point was demolished and added to the rear of the home,’ explains Alexander of the pre-renovated home.

‘What that meant for the internal layout was that the connection to the garden was lost, and the home didn’t receive any good eastern light.’

The home is located on a relatively prominent corner site with no fence or setback from the footpath. With that context in mind, the architects designed a visually sympathetic addition, extending the weatherboard cladding of the original house, and drawing on elements of the neighbourhood vernacular.

‘We wanted to complicate the character of the home by adding contemporary elements, but in a way that reads as a shift rather than a schism, says Alexander. ‘Rather than dividing the house into old and new, we were interested in a home with an evolved character – one connected to its neighbourhood, with a new street presence, and relevant to the clients’ lives.

Internally, the floor plan needed to be flexible to accommodate the family’s changing needs. Alexander adds, ‘As artists, the homeowners are often making things, so we wanted a space that served as a backdrop to their life rather than being too present. It had to accommodate changes they couldn’t yet predict – hanging artwork, turning a room over to a different use – so flexibility and a kind of shell or backdrop for them to inhabit as they saw fit became the idea, rather than being overly prescriptive or heavy handed.’

A strict $450,000 budget (in 2022-2023) was also a key driver of the project, especially when COVID-19 hit and construction prices were rapidly escalating.

‘We had to be incredibly inventive to make sure it came in on budget. We worked very closely with the builder and with industrial fabricators, visiting factories and workshops, exchanging sketched details, and learning their standard processes and what parts of those we could adapt without driving up the cost,’ he says.

It was this research that inspired the galvanised staircase, stainless steel kitchen island, and the steel-framed bathroom furniture, and upstairs glazed screen, complemented by warmer more inviting base of plywood floors and terracotta-toned Artedomus bathroom tiles.

The front of the house remains largely unchanged, except for the addition of a high-level window and awning framing the new front door that brings light into a previously dark corridor.

The ground floor addition begins with the central wet areas, before the communal space, which feels larger thanks to a double-height void over the staircase. The kitchen, dining and living have reoriented the house to the garden, with glazed doors that invite in additional natural light,

Upstairs, a landing leads into a small room before a larger one, both of which can serve multiple purposes. ‘That small room has been used as a reading room, a study, a music room and a nursery – its use seems to shift each time we visit,’ says Alexander. ‘They use the larger upper room as a bedroom, though equally it could accommodate a range of other uses.’

Office Fora’s renovations have also dramatically improved the energy efficiency of the home, with all-electric appliances powered by a rooftop solar array, and energy efficient heat pumps contributing to an overall 6-star NatHERS rating.

‘But in addition to those technical measures, at a more fundamental level, I’d say the retention of these types of buildings – which have huge cultural value (as well as monetary value and the embodied carbon cost) – is a sustainable act in itself,’ says Alexander.

‘This house could easily have been demolished. The coherent evolution of these types of homes is really important, particularly for a neighbourhood like Brunswick, where there’s going to be a lot of change coming with residential rezoning.’

The clients appreciate that house still looks at home in Brunswick, and meets all their needs without being overly ‘showy’.

Alexander likens the house to a much-loved, worn, and quality jacket. ‘It feels fresh and a bit unexpected — not in your face… It has that kind of character, rather than a pristine suit where you have to be careful how you act.’