Project Name: Clarke House

Location: Northcote, Melbourne, Australia

Design Team: Austin Maynard Architects

Total Floor Area: 206 m²

Completion: 2025

Photography: Derek Swalwell

Feature:

Project - Clarke House is the renovation and extension of a single-storey weatherboard cottage in Melbourne's Northcote district, once void of light, definition, separation, and all hope of personal space. Inspired by their year living in Japan, the owners (work-from-home professionals and their two teenage daughters) asked for more considered and purposeful space. "Something different" guided the design—modern but not stark or boxy, bright and open but also cosy and comfortable, areas to come together and entertain, and private spaces suited to each individual.

In realising all aspects of the brief and embedding the solutions into the language of the building, the extension became an unusual stepping and overlapping shape. To unify, a batten screen is set over, providing shade and privacy (to both the owners and their neighbours) and bringing together new and old in a simple meeting of forms.

The structural design is ingeniously configured with a new side entry, to bypass private space and reorient access into the centre of the house. The gate opens into the first of three pocket garden/light wells, inviting air flow and views of greenery, penetrating through to the laundry and the home office on each side. Off the entry, a perforated steel staircase leads directly up to the 'apartment', comprising two bedrooms, a central bathroom 'box', a secret pink craft room, and a study/TV/retreat, with a generous hammock utilising the high ceiling.

To define the original part of the house with respect to the addition, the external materiality of painted weatherboards is continued internally. Not typically used as an interior wall finish, its application draws the exterior inside, creating visual and spatial separation between the old and newly built, and confusing the perception of inside and out. Bluestone paving is used as internal flooring inside the entry to further reinforce the intent.

In strategically avoiding the expansive open-plan living from feeling as the owners feared, "too cavernous" the lounge room extends off the main entertaining zone. Providing just the right amount of space, the form sits slightly raised and protrudes, like a pavilion, sitting within the garden.

Design Team - Austin Maynard Architects was established in 2002 when Andrew Maynard won the Asia Pacific Design Award's grand prize. The practice is led by Co-Directors Mark Austin and Andrew Maynard, both Fellows of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (FRAIA), with Managing Director Sophie Whittakers overseeing daily operations.

This Melbourne and Hobart-based studio employs a deliberative design methodology, addressing issues of liveability, community connection, and sustainable development through collaborative client engagement. Their work has been recognized as Architecture Studio of the Year by Dezeen and Small Firm of The Year by Archello, and they are recipients of the prestigious Canberra Medallion, placing them alongside notable buildings like the National Gallery of Australia, The Australian High Court, and Parliament House.

The firm is characterized by regarding problems as opportunities, forging creative solutions to turn everyday necessities into design assets. For the Clarke House project, Kathryne Houchin worked alongside Andrew Maynard and Mark Austin as part of the project team, demonstrating their commitment to sustainable architecture—the project is fossil fuel free, 100% electric, with a 6.6KW solar system, electric heat pump hot water system and electric heat pump hydronic heating system, and comprehensive insulation throughout.

Austin Maynard Architects' work demonstrates that architectural playfulness can coexist with technical precision, creating spaces that are simultaneously functional, sustainable, and conceptually rich—a testament to architecture's capacity to address contemporary environmental and social challenges.