ande bunbury architects

In a fantastic remodeling of a dreary brick veneer home from the 80s, ABA made this house worthy of its wonderful bushland site with river views. An adaptive reuse of the existing structure was done to improve energy efficiency, functionality and aesthetics. The renovation has been done in two stages over a number of years. This was a substantial makeover to a very average project home – literally a screening. The original house had many problems which included poor orientation, back of house functions facing the street, nobody could find the front door and small, dark rooms lined with brown exposed brick and timber ceilings. The solution was to add extensions at either end of the building with an external decorative timber screen along the public side of the house to conceal everything in between and provide shelter from the harsh west sun. The new entry is visible from the street and we opened the living and bedroom spaces up and created large windows opening out to cantilevering decks and the view. A new garage and studio were added to the south end of the house continuing the line of the original building form. New external walls at the north and south end of the house are in stone cladding or radially sawn weatherboards left in their natural state to weather and blend with the landscape. Custom designed furniture, joinery and artworks repeat an elongated rectangular motif at different scale throughout the project. At once stage the client asked us if it would be possible to have the door to the workshop hidden as part of a bookcase – to which we replied “Of course, anything is possible”.