Fishley

An early-Victorian terrace in inner Melbourne, Fishley sits within a run of nineteenth-century homes on a five-metre wide block where space and light were the two recurring constraints. The block runs east to west, with the rear facing west onto a service lane.

Upstairs, the three existing bedrooms were retained on the first floor and a tired bathroom and toilet were combined into a more generous family bathroom. The ground floor took the bigger move. The original Victorian plan ran as a hallway with two rooms off it and a combined kitchen and dining space at the rear. With a third child on the way, the introverted layout no longer worked, and the dark interiors had no relationship with the outdoors.

The design opens the ground floor by removing the hallway wall and threading in a cranked steel beam, which lets the main living space use the full width of the block. Holding the roughly 140-year-old brickwork and the original stair in place required substantial structural work. The preserved front room was kept as a second sitting space. From the kitchen, the floor steps down into a new kitchen-dining volume that opens onto a timber courtyard, with a compact shower room slotted into the 1.2-metre boundary strip. A second split level steps further down, wrapping the courtyard and housing a laundry that leads through to a study and a kids' sleeping loft, providing the fourth bedroom and play space the family needed.

The existing brick terrace remains clearly legible. A twelve-square-metre addition in timber sits against the heritage masonry, the contrast in material giving the new work its own identity while keeping the original building intact. The result is a four-bedroom home that uses every square metre of a long, narrow inner-city site and draws light and air deep into the plan.

Architect: Bryant Alsop. Project architect: Lisa Welker. Architect: Sarah Bryant. Engineer: Meyer. Photographer: Jack Lovel.