Checkmate

On larger residential projects, a millimetre off is usually neither here nor there. But when the site is just 4.5 metreswide, sandwiched between two double-storey houses, and the client seeks two gardens and living spaces, three bedrooms and a study, plus two bathrooms and a garage, every bit of space counts.

It presented a delightful renovation challenge for Mel Bright and her team, who recently renamed her MAKE Architecture practice as Studio Bright; this is its first published project under the new name.

“It was like moving little chess pieces around,” she laughs. The first move was pulling in space by building to the boundaries.

So, with part of the existing house chopped off at the back, a new, singular dark brick form was gently balanced above it. Consisting of the main bedroom and tucked-in ensuite, it also includes a second little living area and rooftop garden with park views. It’s veiled behind a screen of hit-and-miss brickwork, which cleverly dapples filtered sunlight throughout the day, and playfully defers to Studio Bright’s ongoing love for natural materiality. The veil features a distinctive, offset gable roof, to respond to the neighbours’ property context.

“But when you start to build to the boundary, you have to deal with the water, so the roof drainage and plumbing is doing all sorts of gymnastics,” Mel says. For example, double downpipes embedded in a wall manage any overflow inside the house, weaving from one side of the house to the other in a custom network.

The next challenge was how to get the light in. So, she ran two white brick walls down the block’s sides at a constant height, providing an uninterrupted line of sight from the interior to the garden, and dissolving the inside and outside thresholds to flood natural light into the house.

Beyond the house, a garden. And beyond the garden, a multipurpose space, which faces the laneway at the rear, and cleverly quadruples as a garage, study, music room and laundry. “There’s a real sense of a hidden garden in the city,” Mel says.

With no ornamental front yard for a chat over the fence with the neighbours, instead, the garage door can be rolled up at the rear, providing a connection to the community in the laneway.

“While this was about creating this protected haven, I still feel like if you wanted to, you could work in that back garage space with the roller door up and be part of the neighbourhood,” Mel says.

To accommodate two skylights downstairs, the game of chess ensued. The new volume above couldn’t be pushed further out in both directions, or else there was no room for a bed or bedroom, and it couldn’t extend higher without impacting the neighbours. Instead, joinery was built out by the bed so that the ceiling couldn’t be bumped into, while carefully placed angles allow for the feeling of light. “We worked this section very hard,” Mel says. “It’s a durable, gutsy thing, and it belies the constraints of the site.”

There is more stretching, squeezing and sandwiching, with the house’s new architectural elements tasked to take on more than one use to fulfil the brief. At ground level, the first stair tread wraps around into the dining room to double as a long bench seat, but also finds use as a television cabinet, all in one. “We love this idea,” Mel says. “It didn’t mean they couldn’t have twenty people around for dinner.”

There’s a hatch to access roof storage hidden in the roof-scape, plus a pantry under the staircase. Even the bathroom has a view to a little green light well. As a result, all steps were taken to minimise the effect on the block’s neighbours as much as possible, including managing their access to light, backyards and views.

“We try to be sensitive to the neighbours and work with them,” Mel says. And while the house makes a small site feel large, the bigger story is what it says about Melbourne’s urban context.

“We’re not building bigger homes, but hopefully better ones,” she says. “That’s what’s really interesting about these types of projects. You really have to push some of the boundaries.”