A rare piece of vacant land in an inner Melbourne suburb came up for sale offering three typically terraced shaped house sites measuring only 4500mm wide, which was typical of the street. Armed with plenty of experience with the typical heritage terrace, of poor internal solar access, typical straight stair in the hallway and all of the living located on the darker ground floor level we set about re defining this typology.

The stair was the starting point and we decided to use this as a vehicle for drawing light into the central part of the building. A non-typical return style stair runs across the site and provides a large lightwell via large roof windows which floods down through the three levels. The stair is a light ethereal structure of steel and timber which ensures permeation right down to ground level.

The living areas were then relegated to the central floor with views at both front and back and the stair provides a sense of separation between the lounge and the kitchen/dining.The master suite then occupies the entire upper level.

Because of the narrow site we decided to use tilt-panel concrete as the main structural walls which did not eat into the 4500mm width as much as conventional walls and to highlight the beauty of the material the panels were sandblasted to expose the aggregate.

Natural finishes are the common theme here, concrete walls and flooring, bluestone cladding, steel, stone finishes and timber are all used in creative and unusual ways. The result whilst terraced in shape is definitely anything but your typical terrace house.

Completed: 2019
Location: Fitzroy, Melbourne Australia