Melbourne: In Black and White

This is the type of project I live for: a seamless and incredibly well considered renovation of a heritage listed property. All the ingredients are there – historic scale (the home dates from the 1850s), surrounding land to expand into and a strong vision for how the house needs to function for the family moving in.

Ross Tang Architects is responsible for this project in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn and following on from a client brief that expressed the need to open up the existing house to allow in more light and to provide a floor plan that would give the family ease of access throughout the house, the resulting design sees large expanses of glass creating a new found connection to the outside.

Internally, a strong black and white colour palate visually connects the historic old with the modern new. The materials palate is, as the architect describes, “…raw (galvanised steel exposed structure, polished concrete, or steel painted with black anthracite as used on industrial structures) and tactile.”

Considering that in recent memory homes like this were bulldozed to make way for monolithic apartment blocks, it’s exceptional that this home has not only survived but has been brought into the twenty-first century and given a new purpose, which will ultimately see it through the next 150 years of its life.

Story by Brendan Guy, follow him on Instagram MrBrendanGuy