PROJECTS

Near Byron Bay, where the population is booming, the design of two townhouses inventively responds to the need for infill density and the realities of labour and material shortages.

Resisting a culture of excess, this economical and enlightening home is humble in scale but spirited in its ambitions for the future of suburban housing.

A robust but smooth brick shell, inspired by the sandblasted coastline, envelops this calm and composed Sydney beachside home for a family of surfers.

A quietly radical approach threads delicate new layers into the familiar weatherboard cottage, amplifying perceptions of seasonal change and the specifics of place.

On Sydney’s Northern Beaches, a reimagined 1970s home reflects the architect and client’s mutual appreciation for Japanese design and the inherent beauty of natural materials.

Chromatically controlled yet experientially rich, this apartment design adapts an unusual wedge-shaped plan and the drama of a double-height void to satisfy desires for both solitude and sociability.

Understated yet delightful, this clever update employs “stealth density” to adjust and augment a Sydney semi to suit a growing family of five.

The thorny but familiar challenges of the terrace house are met with skill and ingenuity in this updated Sydney home, demonstrating the value of clever design in dense urban contexts.

Poised between suburb and sea, this robust and respectful new house allows occupants to enjoy the comfort of home while being immersed in a bushland setting.

Inspired by the elegant dynamism of streamline moderne, this update to a 1930s Sydney home weaves new into old while honouring the owners’ love for the building’s interwar heritage.

Nestled into the hillside above Wategos Beach in Byron Bay, the home Christine Vadasz designed for her young family in 1977 was a testing ground for a holistic approach to environmental design. Almost 50 years after it was completed, it endures as an unpretentious example of architecture in equilibrium with landscape.

As demand for intergenerational living continues to grow, this secondary dwelling offers an enticing model for independent and adaptable occupation that can evolve with the needs of its owners.

Blok Belongil, Blok Modular’s collaboration with architecture practice Vokes and Peters, is built on the edge of the sand dunes at Belongil Beach, Byron Bay. In response to rising sea levels, the council forbids construction here unless the building can be demounted and moved within a certain time frame.

Abundant enthusiasm outweighed limited experience for Sam Crawford when his sister called with an invitation to renovate a tired 1950s beach shack. Sam reflects on how this house, designed in collaboration with Emili Fox, kickstarted his career in architecture.

With traditional construction methods beset by time and cost uncertainties, the time is ripe to explore alternatives. This prefabricated house is assembled in just three weeks.

Changing constraint to opportunity, the design of this new home turns a Sydney site edged with a jagged sandstone face into a private setting well suited to family life.

A “make-do and mend” approach renews a bungalow in the Southern Highlands, fine-tuning the home to provide greater independence for a family of four.

An elegant pavilion addition to a Sydney cottage resolves a sloping site and incites its occupants to find delight in inhabiting the building’s edges.

Sitting in “productive tension” with the development’s original ambitions, the fourth stage of Habitat demonstrates the flexibility of its masterplan.

This meticulous adaptation of a Georgian terrace in a tightly protected heritage precinct has seen layers removed, revealed and revived in a fine composition of old and new.

A sensitive renovation to a Sydney home juggles opposing needs for light and privacy, creating spaces for mindfulness and delight.

A third chapter for a house designed in 1961 by Peter Muller, with subsequent additions by Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin, is a masterfully layered design that connects with the past, and with place.

An unusual composition with an asymmetrical design, Shiplap House by Chenchow Little is a bold house untethered by contemporary discourse.

Behind an existing terrace in Sydney, a tiny new build defies expectations by creating an apparently spacious yet private home that considers its neighbours and the planet.

After thirty years at home in this two-storey terrace house, an artistic pair sought renovations to prepare for a few decades more.

A former cobbler’s workshop is reborn as a dexterously planned family home, signalling the latent potential in the repair of our cities’ industrial heritage.

A thoughtful renovation updates and repairs the interior of this well-loved 1950s home with new elements that also preserve treasured family memories.

On the edge of a ridge west of Sydney, Anthony Gill Architects has set up a theatrical performance, linking a 1970s home with a new guesthouse in a single composition that both occupies the landscape and respects its magnificence.

A move into town from a remote farming community inspired the brief for this Armidale site: restore its original nineteenth-century homestead and build a new, complementary living pavilion.

Small but sufficient, this home on the New South Wales north coast pursues a reductive approach to the holiday house, proposing small-footprint simplicity as the antidote to busy city life.