Well Spotted–Rare Tasmanian Modernist Beauty

When Tiff was house hunting, she was fascinated by a smallish Modernist house in Hobart’s Sandy Bay, instantly recognising from the online images that it offered something intriguing. She found building stock where she lived in northern New South Wales to be homogenous and uninteresting and here was the opportunity to purchase a home that, without heritage overlay or listing, was still a significant part of Hobart’s architectural narrative.

This house is one of a few residential projects designed by Tasmanian architect and town planner Sydney Wallace Thomas (SWT) Blythe in the 1970s, very late in his career. Blythe was a senior architect in the Tasmanian Department of Public Works (c. 1934–1949), and responsible for designing nearly 60 government buildings throughout Tasmania, including law courts, technical colleges, hospitals and, notably, schools. He designed in the Moderne style he encountered while working in London in the early 1930s. Many of the English projects he saw reflected styles exemplified by leading European Modernists who had fled Nazism.

Richard Blythe, also an architect and academic, describes his grandfather’s style as English Modernism. Further, SWT Blythe saw his design roots as lying in the progressive works of Dutch architect Willem Dudok and the Expressionist styling of German-British architect Erich Mendelsohn. In any case, the evidence of a new style and approach far away in Tasmania is clear in his public works, and also in this home.

Although Modernism had truly waned by the 1970s, Tiff’s home has the same Modernist traits: an emphasis on purity of form over applied decoration and a focus on creating open, well-lit spaces. This appealed to Tiff, and she was intent on making only small improvements rather than unnecessary expansion or embellishment.

Unimpressed by a lack of interest from larger Hobart firms, Tiff contacted Kate Symons’ practice, Studio Ilk. Kate and colleague Lucy Maxwell warmed immediately to both the project and the client, who wanted to retain as many of SWT Blythe’s original and “exquisite” design features, while creating a warm, quiet retreat for herself.

Kate’s aim: “retain, reuse and restraint … the new was not to overpower the charm of this house,” she says. The orientation to the north, overlooking the River Derwent, was already ideal. One rule of thumb for good sustainable design in Tasmania is: in the sun, out of the wind. This house possessed both qualities.

The original plan is simply two stacked floors. The street-level entry, via a shallow porte-cochere, leads to living and dining spaces, a study and kitchen. A timber staircase winds down to the bedrooms, bathroom and laundry, with access to the garden and a generous, private courtyard/deck. The house had been extremely well-constructed and cared for, but was tired.

With the aim of minimising structural changes on a small but realistic budget, Kate recommended two amendments. First, the kitchen was flipped to the side and the space opened up, with an open shelving unit replacing an internal wall. By doing this, the original layout was still indicated, but with improved spatial usage and light gain. Second was the integration of a small porch on the lower floor to replace an oddly located toilet, and to improve access to the rear bedroom and courtyard/deck. This also created additional ventilation through to the upper floor.

The colour palette throughout is inspired by the forested hills and kunanyi/Mount Wellington behind. While the view to the river is overt, the glossed green tiles in the kitchen and bathroom, gloriously textured deep green carpet and soft, grey porcelain floor tiles in all wet areas create a calm, inward quietness. Glazing was updated throughout; to improve thermal gain and insulation, all bedroom windows were expanded down to the floor and all lighting was replaced with low energy LEDs and strips.

Upstairs, timber floorboards were exposed, restored and oiled, and some existing timber veneer panelling had to be replaced. As a true indicator of a successful project collaboration, client, architect, builder and joiner worked to obtain and stain new Tasmanian oak veneer where required on walls, frames and pelmets. It is impossible to tell the new from existing.

Now, Tiff is ready to move on to the garden. The site is severely triangular, with great solar access and garden beds waiting to be uncovered and replanted. Retain, reuse, restraint applies here too, with Tiff already smothering weeds with cardboard and seeking local propagators to replant a minimal palette of native shrubs for privacy. It’s hard not to think that SWT Blythe would be most pleased indeed.

Kate’s aim: “retain, reuse and restraint”

Inside issue 103 — Grab the issue here.