Gable Clerestory House by Sonelo Architects

Searching for harmony between Gable Clerestory House’s Federation history and its residents’ love of modernist aesthetics, Sonelo Architects has found a solution that creatively balances the two eras. The narrow terrace in Melbourne’s Ascot Vale sits within a heritage neighbourhood of homes from a similar era of strict side setbacks, rooms accessed from side hallways, and dual entries from streets and lanes.

Expanding the house to three bedrooms to accommodate a larger family, this extension adds a gable-roofed volume, with an elegant bulkhead offering an internal datum at the point where the gable springs from the wall. The gable is glazed at both ends, drawing in warming northern light and glare-balancing southern light to create a bright new living, kitchen and dining space that opens onto a sheltered west-facing court.

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Reeded glass on the island and terrazzo benchtops add pattern and texture to the space. Artwork: Sue Beyer.

Image: Peter Carthew

The home’s new kitchen cleverly spans these two distinctive aesthetics. Clay-coloured joinery and warm grey tiles link it to the brick and mortar components of the original home, while the terrazzo benchtop and smooth joinery, with pulls profiled into the door edges, speak to a modernist aesthetic. The bulkhead is a pragmatic way to keep the lines of the space clean, incorporating stovetop extraction as well as flush and surface-mounted lighting. Feature lighting, such as the long pendant over the island bench, subtly reflects the long gable above. While this service space in the home is pared back, there are small details that add richness and texture, such as reeded glass that overlays a clay-coloured substrate on the kitchen’s island bench.

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The ensuite features a west-facing window and an earthy palette of bottle green and warm grey.

Image: Peter Carthew

The bathrooms have design details and colour selections that offer a nod to more historic bathing spaces, such as legged vanities that sit clear of the floor and surface-mounted basins, but the articulation of these elements is clearly contemporary.

The ensuite bathroom, built within the original home with a double-hung sash window facing west, has a palette of bottle green and warm grey and a band of terrazzo running from vanity to shower. The family bathroom, internal to the home, looks skyward for light, with the whole room sitting under a deep, steeply angled skylight.

Both bathrooms have above-bench joinery wrapped with walnut veneer whose deep colour evokes the freestanding joinery original to the home, while simple lines and clean geometry reference mid-century design. Within tight parameters, Sonelo has answered its clients’ brief for a space that expresses their love of modernism, while offering consistent nods to the existing architectural fabric.