Carlton Terrace Extension

Location: Carlton, Victoria
Year: 2023
Scope: Architecture, interiors and heritage
Status: Completed 2023
Photography: Alexei Tsang

Glazed link between an original terrace and a new pale-brick pavilion

The brief

A double-fronted Victorian terrace in a Carlton heritage overlay, owned by a couple expecting their first child. The front of the house was beautiful and protected, with original ceilings, cornices and a tessellated tile entry worth keeping. The back was a 1980s renovation that had aged badly and turned its back on the garden.

The owners wanted more room and a kitchen that worked, but they did not want to lose the character that made them buy the house. They also, sensibly, wanted to avoid a planning fight. The brief was to add what they needed at the rear while leaving the heritage front entirely alone.

Double-fronted Victorian terrace with heritage detailing

Our response

We treated the new work as a separate pavilion, clearly of its own time, set behind the original house and linked by a low glazed joint.

By pulling the new addition back and dropping its roofline below the ridge of the terrace, the heritage front remains the hero from the street and from the laneway behind. The planning permit was granted without objection, which is rare in this overlay and which we put down to the new work being honest about being new rather than pretending to be old.

The pavilion holds a kitchen, dining and living space that opens north to the garden through full-height glazing. We lined it in lime-washed brick and pale timber to keep it calm, and detailed the glazed link so that the moment of stepping from the old house into the new is the quiet drama of the project. Upstairs in the original house, we reworked the rooms for the growing family without touching the protected fabric.

Lime-washed brick pavilion interior opening to the garden

Materials and approach

Lime-washed white brick wall — Lime-washed brick to the new pavilion, soft white and textural.

Restored tessellated Victorian tile entry — Restored tessellated tile entry, repaired tile by tile by a heritage specialist.

Pale Victorian ash joinery — Victorian ash joinery, kept pale to sit quietly against the brick.

New structure: Lime-washed brick and steel
Heritage works: Repaired plaster, cornices and tessellated tile
Joinery: Victorian ash, clear finish
Glazing: Thermally broken aluminium, double glazed
Link: Frameless glazed joint between old and new

Outcome

The family got the house they needed without losing the one they fell for. The street front is exactly as it was, the garden is finally part of the home, and the planning process, often the hardest part of working in a heritage overlay, was settled without a hearing. The project was published by Est Living in 2023.