Enhancing Melbourne’s Heritage

Too often we see heritage restorations and extensions that have lost touch with the original design or tried to recreate it without fully understanding the architecture. This is why I am so excited to see an East Melbourne residence originally by one of Melbourne’s most influential Victorian Era architects, Joseph Reed given justice.  Restored and extended, architect Atelier Wagner has stayed true to the language and reinterpreted to something more of today, enhancing the original architecture.

Atelier Wagner retained and celebrated the scale and solidarity of the original building by creating a void which mediates and exhibits the threshold. Semi transparent wooden bridges and stairs weave through out, and the dance of shadows is divine.

The extension is of a grand scale, yet dynamism has been achieved through balance of horizontal and vertical components. Throughout, engineered structures meet robust, natural elements with wood, steel, marble, stone and concrete being the primary materials. Each contrasting and accentuating the other.

The old and the new are mediated by a void, wooden bridges and stairs weave through out, the materials creating a divine dance of shadows. What I find so interesting about this project is that, down to the angled overlapping tensile wire referencing the grain of the wood, every detail has been considered.

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East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

East Melbourne house by Atelier Wagner

Photographer: John Gollings

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