Two New Homes

RBA is excited to announce the much anticipated completion of two residential contemporary additions and alterations! Both projects involved contemporary additions to Victorian era houses to create beautiful family homes adapted to modern living.

‘Cassiope’, Windsor

A desire to retain treasured features of the original dwelling, and provide for flexible family living were the drivers behind this project. The result is a well-considered collaboration of old and new elements that collectively transforms the historic house into a dwelling for the growing modern family.

 

Page Street, Middle Park

The tight footprint behind the 1890s row cottage provided a challenge and demanded an economy of space and clever storage solutions.  The aspects of the design are inspired by Japanese machiya. Machiya are traditional wooden townhouses found throughout Japan, predominantly in the historical capital of Kyoto. The typical Kyoto Machiya is a long wooden home with narrow street frontage, stretching deep into the city block and usually contains one or more small courtyard gardens.  This concept was the inspiration for working with such a long and narrow site.  Environmental sustainability measures are integrated into the design, including natural lighting, solar energy, hydronic heating, double glazing and water tanks.

Sympathetic repairs have vastly improved the presentation of the original front part of the house.  The external paint colours were chosen based on the original scheme, which was revealed by paint scrape analysis of the various painted elements.