PUBLISHED Ballarat mid-century modern house extension completed! (reflections)

A beautiful set of photos by Marnie Hawson last year helped us to celebrate the success of this major project for here studio.

The house was featured in a special issue of House and Gardens Australia August 2021 about ‘moving to the country’ - available here and also in 25 Beautiful Homes UK July 2021 about ‘uplifting schemes’ - available here.

This beautiful, happy-client outcome was very exciting for our team after 5 years of hard work focussed on mastering residential extensions at affordable budgets (below $1M), and wading through the various challenges that focus brings.

Our first major publication of a house project - 25 beautiful homes UK, featuring a contemporary addition to a Federation house in Ballarat.

The brief, the big idea and the design

The ‘Loch Avenue’ house is an extension to a weatherboard Federation Era Victorian house in Ballarat Central, close to Webster Street, for a client who was moving back to Ballarat after many years abroad in Shanghai, China.

The big idea was to create a well-designed home to be proud of and settle in, with excellent amenities to cook and welcome guests and entertain and celebrate a love for furniture, food, art and interiors. The brief included full renovation to the front of the house (some demolition to the back bits) and the addition of a new kitchen linked to an outdoor entertainment area, living-dining room, and upstairs new master bedroom with ensuite.

It was a challenging site on an inner urban small block with a heritage overlay requiring close work with the City of Ballarat planning officers - read more here - and fine adjustments to suit Rescode requirements.

The exterior treatment and form worked to both contrast and ‘riff’ off the existing - tying the new against the old with colours, roof angles, form setbacks and even the simple alignment of cladding. One of our signature moves, created a link space for light and a new entrance set back to clearly demarcate the old from the new, yet with dimensions that followed the module of the existing verandah. Inside we connected the old and new with stepping-down spaces from a library to a sunken dining and lounge room, and, thoughtful interior design palettes not shy with colour.

The exterior form and envelope required careful study of eye-level perspectives, and Rescode forms, heights and overlooking.

First hand sketch form over digital model, marrying a modernist ‘domino’-planes house with a close boundary wall situation, ‘ResCode’ and heritage perspectives at eye level.

Besides the fun we had developing ideas with our client, and some later input from an interior stylist - the Stylesmiths - two key features were particularly interesting: a two-storey glazed-brick fireplace with abstracted Eucalyptus colours; and a central island bench: one-side stainless steel for commercial grade cooking, the other side stunning pearl white kitkat tiles and blackbutt timber lean-bench for a restaurant/bar feel.

A glazed brick (gas) fireplace was an exciting feature we designed to anchor the different levels, inside outside and upstairs. Photo: Marnie Hawson.

They key space is the kitchen, commercial quality, tall, lots of light and connection to outdoors, and, a snazzy bar interface. Photo: Marnie Hawson.

Reflecting on why the project was a success

It was definitely our close collaboration with the client – agonistic participation! – that made this project such a success. This collaboration was not without challenges and a lot of time and energy. The process was difficult – with criticism, constant negotiation with one another, doubts, disagreements, changing minds, justifying each move and arguing things out. It was participatory. The key quality is that through this, everyone maintained a strong focus on a great outcome, listened to each other’s needs and perspectives, and readily invested time and energy for the project.

By the time a builder (via tender) was on board we had developed a close understanding and trust client-to-architect, architect-to-client, which allowed us to work confidently as both agent and contract administrator for the construction stage. We subsequently had an excellent relationship with a local builder Resicare (now Buildspec) who showed great care, respect and positivity throughout, and enhanced the overall outcome possible. It helped that the builder had worked with architects before – and, that so much prior work was done to keep the budget down before the tender.

Another reflection is that – in our back and forth with our client from the start and throughout – we were quick to find a theme early on: “mid-century modern” + “contemporary lux” (via lots of zoom, text messages photos and face to face meetings), and we kept returning to that in discussions.

Here it is on our website.

Here Studio specialises in working thoughtfully and creatively with existing houses, so beautiful, exciting, meaningful and finely-designed home extensions can emerge.