The Northcote House

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

Brick addition opening to a north-facing garden under a clerestory window

The brief

The owners, a couple with two young children, had bought a single-fronted Victorian terrace on a tight Northcote block. They loved the street and the front rooms, and they could not stand the back of the house. A dark lean-to kitchen looked south onto a paved courtyard that no one used. They asked for one thing above all: light, and a connection to a garden their children could spend time in.

The block ran north at the rear, which is the gift every south-facing terrace owner hopes for. The challenge was a long, narrow footprint, neighbours close on both sides, and a heritage front that had to stay exactly as it was.

Original single-fronted Victorian terrace front from the street

Our response

We removed the lean-to and replaced it with a single brick room that turns its back on the neighbours and opens entirely to the north garden.

Rather than push for the largest possible addition, we kept the new room modest and spent the saving on getting it right. A high clerestory window runs along the southern edge, pulling morning light deep into the plan over the new kitchen joinery. A wide sliding door opens the room to a small north garden, which we lowered to sit flush with the floor so the inside and outside read as one space.

The new work is brick, inside and out, left exposed and unpainted. It carries the heat of the winter sun through the day and gives it back in the evening, which has noticeably cut the heating the family relies on. We kept the original front rooms and hallway almost untouched, repairing rather than replacing, so the house still reads as the terrace it has always been from the street.

Brick-walled living room with a concrete floor and timber kitchen

Materials and approach

Recycled red brick laid in stretcher bond — Recycled red brick, laid in a simple stretcher bond and left exposed inside and out.

Oiled spotted gum joinery showing the timber grain — Spotted gum joinery in the kitchen, oiled rather than lacquered so it wears in rather than out.

Burnished concrete floor surface — Burnished concrete floor through the new room, with hydronic heating beneath for the coldest months.

Structure: Recycled red brick, exposed
Floor: Burnished concrete with hydronic heating
Joinery: Oiled spotted gum
Glazing: Thermally broken aluminium, double glazed
Roof: Zinc, standing seam

Outcome

The family now spends most of its time in a room that did not exist three years ago. The garden, once an afterthought, is where the children play and where the house breathes in summer. The project came in close to budget by keeping the new footprint small and the materials honest, and it was shortlisted in the 2023 Houses Awards for New House under 200 square metres.