All photography by Peter Clarke.

Writer’s House is an alteration to an existing orange brick veneer residence that was designed in the late 1960s by Michael R E Feldhagen. The house was originally built for the grandparents of the current owners who were Jewish Holocaust survivors and immigrated to Australia a few years prior to building the house.

The design updates an existing 1960s home.

The home’s existing fabric has been carefully set in contrast to the contemporary furniture, joinery and materials that reside as a background palette to highlight the existing while simultaneously celebrating the new.

A new large ‘party’ deck bounded on either side by two black aluminium perforated screens not only solves a practical issue of privacy but more importantly extends the internal areas to create a more flexible internal/external cohesion of space.

The existing dark corridor and foyer space has been re-imagined as a light filled, plywood lined gallery space to hang art. This corridor simultaneously provides privacy for the bedroom areas from the living, kitchen and dining spaces, as well as a link between the two.

Opposite the kitchen is a cosy TV space, tucked back into the house to create a more intimate area specifically for watching movies or to snuggle up with a good book. A large full-height sliding panel allows the space to become ‘a part’ of the main living area or made completely separate and hidden beyond.

At the other end of the house, a series of bedrooms and bathrooms were reconfigured and re-imagined to accommodate the client and their growing family.

The downstairs areas of the house have been re-configured as a self-contained unit preempting its use for when the client’s young children grow up. For now, the spaces host an intimate subterranean whiskey den/wine cellar for a late night nightcap, as well as a bathroom and writing room.

The front courtyard space was reclaimed from the previously unused front garden to become a practical and useable space for contemplation and writing.

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