Roofscape House, North Carlton

We wanted to alter the way that the house and its surroundings were experienced; to address its narrow site in a way that avoided placing a corridor down one side and resisted the urge to push everything to the boundaries.

Project Overview
Characteristics
Specifications
Media
Testimonials

Shortlist – Residential Alterations & Additions Category

Victorian Architecture Awards 2011

Client Brief

A narrow terrace house needed a host of new spaces to provide a young family with the room to live, work and grow. In adding a study/guest room, bedrooms and a family room we looked to avoid pushing these new spaces into their much loved garden, while drawing in the amenity of the inner suburban surroundings.

Design Response

We met the clients need for new spaces – without encroaching on their garden – by adding a clever addition to the top of the existing structure.

The new first floor was stretched along the length of the existing house, touching each boundary at its centre and narrowing at each end. In the centre of the house, the double height family room connects the ground floor to the upstairs. The rooms either side of this tall space are also used for circulation, minimising corridors.

These spaces are then bookended by bedrooms. At the street end the bedroom pushes into the existing roof space, creating a room with the proportions of an attic; an interesting bedroom for a young girl. At the other end, the clients’ bedroom gains internal height while narrowing to minimize any overshadowing or overlooking.

The new house is better connected, more adaptable, and open to views and breezes. As an object it is clearly different to the house it sits on, but one that reflects the roof-forms and colours of its surroundings.
Characteristics
Key values
- Adaptable, flexible spaces within designated zones
- Contextual aesthetic of roof forms and materials
- Natural cross and stack ventilation
- Views from all new rooms
- Careful use of project budget
Key materials
- Lysaught Klip Lok roofing and Cladding,
- Hardies Scyion Matrix Cladding
- Lapaege Rosso Siso wall tiles
- Eco-Ply Hoop Pine Flooring
- Basalt vanity by Marble Art
Specifications
Core deliverables
- Bedrooms x 2
- Study
- Laundry
- Family room
- Storage attic
- Master bedroom terrace
- Terrace
Services Provided
- Concept design
- Planning permit documentation
- Contract documentation and building permit
- Construction administration
Architect

Antarctica (with Simon Whibley as co-director)

People

Project Team: Simon Whibley, Ben Inman, Nico Kelly

Client

Vince Murphy & Helen Thomas

Date completed

2010

Location

North Carlton, Victoria
Roofscape House Media

Awards
- Finalist, Alterations and Additions Category, Victorian Architecture Awards 2011
Publications
- Forty Six Square Metres of Land Doesn’t Normally Become a House, 2011
- Houses Magazine, Issue 55
Press
- ‘Surprises All Round’ Ann Pilmer, The Age
Roofscape House Testimonials

It’s not just the result that was excellent, it was also the service. We were given a clear understanding of what to expect and when to make decisions, at each stage of the project. This was backed up with attention to detail during the construction.

Vince Murphy and Helen Thomas

Related projects

Acheson Place, Coburg North

This project revolves around the simple but transformative act of cutting a hole in the middle of a large existing volume.

View project

Fawkner Street House, South Yarra

Explores delicate control of circulation in curating series of visual thresholds that interact and entice occupants to transverse within spaces.

View project

Mirror Shed, Elwood

Housing bins, bikes, garden supplies and an air conditioning unit, this mirror clad shed visually dissolves, whilst intriguing and confounding the viewer from the street.

View project

Community Care Home

A residential care facility a range of disenfranchised and vulnerable people.

View project

Gold St Renovation

A simple spatial concept unites four different uses of one small room; a cupboard, a passage, a laundry, a bathroom.

View project

Diagonal House, North Fitzroy

Innovative add-on opens like a fan towards sun drenched north-facing rear courtyard.

View project

Art House, Richmond

A house / gallery defined by a curated circulation path past an extensive collection of books, artworks and artefacts, punctuated by iconic neighbourhood views.

View project

Nicholson Street Extension, South Yarra

Removing wasteful circulation this extension, provides enlarged living areas whilst getting northern light into the south facing spaces

View project

The Seymour Apartments, Armadale

With eleven apartments, a generous retail space and car-stacker, rigorous planning has facilitated modest sized apartments with exceptional amenity.

View project

Curtain Street Extension, North Carlton

Complementing substantial internal renovations, this hovering, custom laminated plywood pergola provides sun protection, weather protection and generous filtered day light.

View project

Pinwheel House, North Carlton

Like a pinwheel, the different spaces and rooms of the house connect off a centre point – giving the house not a room, but a hub.

View project

EcoVillage House Designs, Cape Paterson

7.5 star housing designs founded on research showing that the financial benefits of an environmentally friendly home now far outweigh the costs.

View project

Freemans Villa, Freemans Bay, New Zealand

Textures and colours evolved through discussions in the design process. The end result is a careful combination of finishes lining the new spaces.

View project

Affordable Bushfire Home, Kinglake & Marysville

An affordable bushfire resistant home designed for those left homeless by the black Saturday bushfires in Kinglake and Marysville.

View project

Roofscape House, North Carlton

The addition to an inner-suburb terrace for a young family reflects the roof-forms and colours of its surroundings.

View project

Cecil Street Extension, Fitzroy

A clever response to a small site – accommodating a contemporary household by providing new amenity and flexibility.

View project

Grover Home Office, Clifton Hill

A backyard home/office and laundry/bathroom which allows connection with the life of the family to be maintained but with a degree of separation.

View project

Clauscen Street Extension, North Fitzroy

An addition dynamically shaped to reduce shadow-loading on its adjacent neighbours and to reduce the felt-effects of building bulk.

View project

Joshi-Fordyce Extension, Northcote

An extension, the form of which is conceived as a stylised lava flow of volume shaped by both internal spatial requirements and external forces.

View project

Brunswick Extension

An extension conceived as an independent annexe to the existing house with its own distinct relationship to the yard at the rear.

View project

Park Orchards Extension

A multiple-extension to an existing house designed by Alistair Knox which includes garage space for four cars and an extension to the existing living area.

View project

O’Reilly Budd Extension, Thornbury

Entered from the side, this extension is defined by three distinct prismatic forms, sculpted to suit the scale and functional requirements of the site.

View project

Buttery Apartment, Melbourne

An interior fitout defined by a sculptural freestanding joinery unit which fulfils the functions of bedroom partition, kitchen pantry, refrigerator housing, wardrobe and bookshelf.

View project