The few walls at ground level are made from translucent glass. Even the bathroom features a glass wall. “You can just make out silhouettes,” says Billy, who was keen to filter as much light through the house as possible. The perforated facade draws light into the house, and a tinted mirror on the wall adjacent to the stairwell reflects it into other areas of the home. “The perforated facade is quite elaborate. I wanted other features to be more subtle,” he says.
This innovative home, designed by a Melbourne architect for his young family, represents a unique take on a terrace – and it’s certainly got the neighbours talking. Stephen Crafti reports on a project that catches the eye of all who pass.
Period houses are always highly sought after, thanks to their inherent charm, proximity to our cities and associated urban-village lifestyle. But for fans of modern architecture, pursuing your ideals within a heritage streetscape will inevitably see you going head to head with councils and neighbours keen to preserve the look and feel of the area.
This dilemma was played out in a new house in inner-city Melbourne. “People either love it or hate it. There’s no in-between,” says architect Billy Kavellaris, Director of Kavellaris Urban Design, of the two-storey, two-bedroom home he occupies with his wife Rosalba and daughters Jorja, three, and Alexia, one.
In 2006, Billy and a colleague came across a vacant lot measuring just 5.5x30 metres. Once a garden to the adjacent Victorian-era terrace, it had the advantage of two street frontages. The pair snapped up the sliver of a site and further subdivided it, Billy taking the front portion, his colleague opting for the rear.
While the dimensions of this reduced site, now measuring only 15 metres deep, would challenge most architects, in fact it was the heritage guidelines that proved the impetus for this design. “You can’t reproduce the past. And even if you could, who wants to live in small, confined rooms?” says Billy, who moved his family into the resulting contemporary home in January.
In designing the house, Billy had to create a link to the past to ensure council approval. That link takes the form of a perforated aluminium screen that conceals the entire facade of the building. The entire screen retracts to unveil the contemporary home behind, complete with glass balustrade and open-plan living areas.
Like the unorthodox facade, the interior of this home is anything but traditional. On the ground floor, the entrance is concealed behind a window and the lobby doubles as a reading area. The main bedroom, too, is immediately visible from the entrance. Located behind a glass wall, it can be screened by drawing a curtain. “We can enjoy the streetscape while lying in bed or reading in the lobby,” says Billy.
“There is an element of humour in the design,” says Billy, pointing out the perforated parapet with the words ‘KUD 2008’. “Normally Victorian terraces come with a name and date. But as you can see, this is no ‘Rose Cottage’,” he says. Rather, in place of a traditional garden with rosebushes, two eucalypts stand sentinel either side of the concrete path, behind a steel ‘picket’ fence.
Upstairs, the north-facing terrace has also received a contemporary twist courtesy of a mural by artist Emma Burmeister. The satirical work includes a rotary clothes hoist, a barbecue and even children playing on a swing. It’s the perfect representation of a 1950s backyard but bears no resemblance to the life led by a young family living in the inner city. “We have the park at one end of the street and a great shopping strip at the other,” says Billy. “We love our ‘terrace’ and enjoy being part of the wider community.”Kavellaris Urban Design, Collingwood, Victoria; (03) 9417 1116 or www.kud.com.au.Photography by Derek Swalwell