Courtyard retreat: East Fremantle House

A courtyard was a welcome addition to this long, skinny, north-facing site in East Fremantle with its existing brick cottage. As architect Nic Brunsdon notes, it was addition by subtraction, with the aim that the new pieces of building deferred to the enclosed courtyard garden. While the court is the focus in plan, the three-dimensional diagram of the build has a heavy block-and-brick base throughout the lower floor, keying into the existing cottage; this is paired with a lighter, timber-framed and -clad volume for the upper floor. Large and small details throughout the home reference this diagram of light and heavy, and three different material schemes define the design.

Within a small plan, the kitchen was pushed toward the back of the building to ensure that the living spaces weren’t dominated by domestic activity. Acting as a hinge in the plan, the kitchen is an access point to all the home’s “back of house” machinery – pantry, laundry and powder room. Standing in the kitchen, it is possible to feel part of the courtyard, but also connected to the lounge room. Textured white-painted brick defines the kitchen spaces, and a particular feature is the skylit rear bench; with its wall cast in light, shadow and water patterns, it provides a constantly changing backdrop to the kitchen.

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Nic playfully calls pushed-out areas like the dining room nook “lumps”. Artworks: Jordy Hewitt.

Image: Dion Robeson

The bench is one of several protrusions onto the south wall of the building. The strategy was to keep the internal flow as smooth as possible and allow additional space requirements to bulge out into the side lane. These roughly rendered sculptural “lumps,” as the architect calls them, create a playful elevational landscape.

The three bathrooms all draw their characters from their locations within the home. In the link between the existing house and the new build, the shared family bathroom takes its language of brick, tile, terrazzo and deeper colour from the cottage, with stack bond detailing to establish it as contemporary. The powder room by the kitchen – its tall ceiling possible as one of the “lumps” – follows the language of white-painted brick, with the datum line split between heavy and light defined in its walls. Picking up on the rich blues of Fremantle skies, the spacious upstairs ensuite is colour-blocked in blue tile and matching painted walls, with marble benchtops providing additional, refined texture.