Salisbury Townhouses by NTF Architecture

Salisbury Townhouses began with six identical 1960s flats in Blackburn, a sought-after middle-ring Melbourne suburb. After testing the site's redevelopment potential, NTF Architecture concluded that renovating the existing dwellings would give the best result, and the brief became an exercise in alteration rather than demolition.

The practice treated texture and colour as the project's main devices. The existing brickwork was bagged and painted, while a new first floor was clad in timber. Black windows and screens run between the two levels, linking the ground and upper floors and tying the old and new fabric together.

Reuse sat at the heart of the approach. Retaining as much of the original structure as possible, the team added the upper floor and positioned it carefully within a suburban landscape overlay, so the finished townhouses settle comfortably into their context.

Completed in 2019 across two levels.

Architecture by NTF Architecture (Ben Ellul, Brett Nixon). Photography by Dave Kulesza.