Allan Street House

A young couple with their two young children. They came to us with relatively modest requirements, partly due to money, but also because they wanted to be sustainable - They saw benefit in opting for a small footprint.

The brief was to convert a traditional Brunswick cottage, on a tight site, into a home for a growing family on a small budget. The project explores the lifestyle this can offer a growing family. The central location, connection to parks, and acceptance that in Inner Melbourne it’s okay to not have a big backyard were guiding factors.

Due to the tight budget we explored a series of feasibility schemes with the clients to help them prioritise their requirements, and help us lock down the brief. The first scheme we tested, which was in the end the chosen scheme, (we find the first one’s almost always right as it’s based on an experienced ‘gut feel’) was to try to keep the main body of the house, and do a simple single-storey extension. We did explore a two-storey design with the clients, which would have allowed far more outdoor, but the clients looked at the price and this option was eliminated straight away.

Everything in a Brunswick worker’s cottage is small. So the Challenge is how to make it feel large and open, with a sense of volume, and opportunities for sun to get in. The site also has a tall neighbouring building to the north, which blocked sunlight as well as minimal space for a backyard. We responded to these constraints by by keeping the main body of the existing house and adding a simple single-storey extension that ran along the south boundary to catch the northern sun.

Connection to the outside is so important, and in smaller projects it is critical to design for a range of sight lines. By angling up the new roof line of the living area, the space becomes light and sculptural, and a bank of high windows allows long views to the sky. Straight away you have a site line that draws your eyes out and beyond the existing pokey cottage.

A tight budget demands lateral thinking to optimise the amount of space, or amount of function, that can be inserted within the least amount of building. We employed a few design tricks, such as having the corridor into the new extension expand out to become part of the dining and living room. There is also a study nook at the end of the living area, which is within the same building form, the roof of which continues to the rear boundary to create an external storage area – a cheap, efficient way to gain extra space.

More often than not, the thing that drives budget is building area. The cheapest scheme always involves less building. Being smart about the planning, allows for less building area. The design does more in less building and encompasses quite a simple structure over the top with the amount of external walls limited. We didn’t really change the main fabric of the existing house, instead we treated the old and new as two distinct areas. Budget-wise, this was an important approach.

In Japanese architecture there is an intention to manicure a small space into something that functions efficiently while being pleasant to be in. As long as you aren’t walking through one space to get to another across a diagonal, then you can make small spaces work effectively. For example, a dining table is something you walk around because you have to sit around it. This area can be utilised as circulation space seeing a double up of the dining room circulation with the in-out circulation.

We also take a holistic approach to design, considering the elements that are to be housed by the space. It’s not just having a room that you then furnish, it’s getting the space to work for the intended furniture.

For this project, just as in all of our projects, a range of passive solar design practices were implemented. Large windows are oriented toward the north for warmth and light, with a custom designed pergola that lets in the winter sun to warm the house, while blocking out the harsh summer sun.

This form of the pergola snakes around the side of the building, and reflects how the outdoor spaces of the house are naturally used at different times of the day - where the overhang widens, a shadier, cool spot is created that can be used in warmer weather.

All the walls and ceilings have high levels of insulation to regulate changes in temperature, and the exposed concrete floor acts as a thermal mass absorbing the warmth of the sun. Cross-ventilation is achieved through operable windows across the new extension that let in fresh air, while ceiling fans, and a bank of high operable louvres, work as a ‘thermal chimney’ to expel unwanted warm air.

All solar panel systems installed in our projects are battery adaptable. There’s a common issue of heating and cooling in house extensions and every client has a different view of the extent they’d like to heat or cool their home. Some people prefer not to heat bedrooms while others do. Selecting efficient active systems for a home is really about identifying how the occupants want to live, and also working with what’s already there, not just discarding it and applying a whole new technology, especially when working to a tight budget.

In this project, there were three existing split reversible air conditioners. With consideration to budget, these were added to rather than discarded. While several rooms have a reverse-cycle air conditioner which, intuitively sounds like a terrible thing to do environmentally; the PV electricity generation on the roof would mean that during the day, they’re covering most of the electricity consumption. The intention is also that due to the application of passive solar design principles as well as additional insulation, you’d hope the split systems aren’t used too often. For heating, an in-slab hydronic system was installed in the kitchen, dining, living room and study areas.

When you have an old house and a new extension, it’s easy to make the new section function well thermally, while the old house is often difficult to deal with. You can add insulation into existing ceilings and walls, but unless you’re re-plastering entire rooms, it’s difficult and expensive to do so throughout. Compartmentalisation, (separating the old and new areas of the house with operable doors) is a simple way to enhance thermal performance. Whether it’s for cooling when air conditioning is on in the main living areas, for heating, or just for noise separation.