When architect Blair Smith’s expat, UK-based clients would call, his phone would light up with “London,” instantly lodging The Clash’s song London Calling firmly in his mind. Combine this with the project’s purpose for the clients – answering a longing to return to the place they’d called home 10 years earlier – the title “Home Calling” seems more than apt.
The brief given to Blair Smith Architecture was to undo an older, single-level renovation made to a double-brick late-Victorian home, located in the heart of Melbourne’s inner precinct of Richmond Hill, and to design a larger, two-storey contemporary addition that would accommodate the clients’ now larger family. Undertaken during COVID-19 lockdowns and from opposite sides of the globe, the design sought to maximise the magnificent views of the city skyline and to create space for a family of five – encompassing entertaining areas, a light-filled courtyard, zones for both the everyday and cozy family moments, and a generous area for the parents to live and work on the new second level.
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Typical of inner-suburban projects, there were many regulatory and site issues that Blair Smith Architecture had to contend with. Crossovers, overlooking and natural light concerns have been neatly dealt with, along with a one-metre change in level from the front to the back of the site. Solutions to each of these constraints have been woven together magnificently to create a home that is much more than the sum of its parts.
The project also has, unusually, two frontages. The existing front of the house was tidied up and a beautiful new garden designed by Josh Arkey from JALA Landscape installed. The second frontage, on the wider-than-usual rear access lane, is where the architectural expression of the project is allowed a more unapologetic response among the motley assortment of garage doors and fences.
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This new frontage is a crisply detailed two-storey volume in lightly bagged cream brick, positioned up against the neighbour’s double-height wall on the southern boundary and opening the home and courtyard to the northern aspect. The laneway elevation is punctuated by a single window in its upper corner and provided with texture with a neatly aligned slatted gate that slides into a recessed niche when open. A hit-and-miss brick screen next to the niche is an architectural full stop that affords the clients both security and privacy when opening an internal window, and promotes cross ventilation through the house.
Along the northern elevation facing the courtyard, accoya slats, harmoniously toned to the brickwork, give the volume a lighter, more delicate feel. On the first floor, a long band of motorised screens open the upper windows to stunning views of the city without overlooking the neighbours. This upper wall splays open at the western end to dramatically expand the view of the city skyline from the first-floor retreat (and provide the backdrop for a special suspended fireplace that is surely from the future).
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The interiors of the home are, as with the exterior, finely detailed and harmonious. Blair notes that the approach was to develop a small but refined palette of materials, be they Japanese tiles or bespoke basins in stone, that are then used across each of the wet areas and utility spaces to create continuity between the existing and new zones. This controlled palette is then offset with moments of warmth and colour such as the deep red carpet in the lounge and the timber joinery in the parents’ retreat.
One wonders, if the family knew they’d be coming back to a house like this, whether their time in London might have been quite so long.