4 Courtyard Homes That Create More Space by Building Less

Little O'Grady is a result of the challenges we faced with the home. Our client is an independent, adventurous and well-travelled woman living in coastal Victoria, with this her city crash pad. Her adult children are both actors living overseas and wanting to accommodate them better when they come and stay, a renovation was desperately needed. And with a new grandchild arriving, there was a renewed sense of urgency to provide a base for her family. The house is in Albert Park, a bayside suburb south of Melbourne, on a small lane-like street. The area has a unique mix of architecture with late Victorian homes, as well as intact row houses in different periods. With access to the beach, Albert Park Lake and boutique shopping, it's no surprise that people don't move away and this is partly why our client chose to renovate. The site is compact, only 110 square metres and comes with the added challenge of being south-facing. The original house was a single-bedroom cottage with a tiny living room and a corridor that opened up to a one-room kitchen dining space and a small deck at the rear. When visiting, you never got any of the joy that comes when you invite sunlight into your house, so it was definitely a priority with the design. Of course, the owner wanted her sons to be able to stay and be comfortable, so there was desire for a guest suite turning it into a two-bedroom house. We normally try to solve the south-facing challenge first and that was critical here, so we quickly came up with an option for a courtyard scheme. The challenge was to allow it to completely open and this is done by a series of sliding and stacking doors that move completely out of the way, creating one large space that encompasses the living room, the courtyard and the kitchen. Just one beautifully generous space, which is particularly effective when the owner is entertaining and luxurious when they are home alone. Wedged between two row houses, there is a small front veranda garden. You enter the home and to your right is the original bedroom of the cottage with a new guest bathroom. Creating this downstairs bathroom was important, so a remapping of the layout was needed. Beyond the bathroom is the open living room with built-in joinery which opens to the beautiful courtyard. It may seem strange not to fully utilise the space under the stairs and to have an open tread staircase, particularly in such a small footprint where storage is always needed. However, one of the best things you can do in a small house to give a feeling of space and spatial flow is to open the stairs to allow light to filter through. It actually increases the feeling of space. Past the stairs and courtyard is the kitchen and dining space with rear access. Although compact, nothing has been compromised in the design of the kitchen with plenty of storage and modern appliances. Being at the southern end of the site, the kitchen has several highlight windows which allow for northern and eastern sun and another highlight window which connects through to the borrowed landscape of the south. Upstairs is the client's retreat with their bedroom and ensuite as well as a small balcony. The bathroom is tucked into the form of the roof as it rakes down without impacting on the courtyard below. Bathing is important to the owner. To give a bit more wow factor, we added a beautiful skylight over the bath which dissolves into the window to provide a big sky view and a sense of delight when bathing. With tight heritage controls, the upstairs was challenging. We ended up pushing it back to the middle of the site in order to comply with the City of Port Phillip heritage policy envelope and tucking and weaving where necessary to avoid overshadowing the neighbours. The client was very open to material choices. There were of course some clear budget constraints that we had to work within and as always, sustainability of materials and structure was a key consideration. As a result, timber becomes the defining materiality. It was an opportunity to express sustainable construction that has a beauty and warmth. So we left the structure exposed showcasing ceiling joists and beams and their attention to craftsmanship and detail. This works in together with timber finishes to the floor, windows, doors and joinery. The space is expanded by the mirrored stainless steel splashback which harmonises beautifully with the timber tones. Externally, bare stone, which is a fibre cement sheet cladding provided that mix of longevity that the client was searching for especially as it doesn't require painting or coating maintenance over the long term. Timber lining boards externally pick up on the timber theme and were a way to connect the interior materiality to the exterior materiality. These two materials also work really well with the landscaping elements. While there is a bit going on when you see this house there's a real sense of calm and zen-like feeling to the space. The repetition of elements you experience in the exposed timber of the ceiling plan as it goes through the house is picked up by the repetition of elements of the hanging stair which has open steel rod balustrades and timber treads. The natural light and the flow of space evoke that feeling of calmness. By separating the living room via the courtyard to the kitchen at the rear a beautiful light comes in and when combined with a reduced strong timber materiality opening up into a single lounge space it all makes for a generous and beautiful place to live. First impressions arriving at the site was just turning off the main road onto a dirt road and the immediate sense of wanting to kick the shoes off and put the thongs on and the boardies on and it's amazing how that just immediately settles you into the idea of you're at the beach and how do we bring that same dirt road relaxation and weave that into the design. Mount Marthur is a quiet coastal town an hour south of Melbourne. We have a quiet nice village. It's a very relaxed feel. What first drew me to this site was the sheer size. Being over one acre there was a great opportunity to develop something really unique and special. The key brief that Christian gave us at the commencement of these four homes and right up to completing the honey house was that they were speculative homes. They were to be sold and we wanted to create something that was unique and different to perhaps some of the cookie cutter design and build homes that you might see in the area. The site was acquired as a speculative project so the brief from the get-go was to create something that would reach the broader market. We wanted to make sure the home was going to be suitable for them now and into the future and ensuring that that was luxurious and it was somewhere that they enjoyed being. We didn't necessarily have an external view of water or parkland so pretty quickly we resolved that this was going to be a courtyard style house. The idea of a spine through the middle of the house to connect to the front and the back and off of that spine are the secondary bedrooms and living areas. The suite at the front of the house which could be for guests. The pop-top roof and the steel-framed shroud that captures that or shades the window is both a really nice arrival point and allows the facade and streetscape to be enjoyed but equally internally just that sense of volume the light the view to the tree canopy. We've got the dining and the kitchen areas located to the rear of the site where there's really wonderful sense of privacy. It's a beach house that kitchen living dining is focused around and able to connect out into the courtyard that receives really great sun throughout the day. What makes a Mount Martha beach house? There's no one defining feature but we spent some time walking and driving the surrounding streets and the weatherboards and the concrete blocks were pulled from surrounding homes that we observed. Often you may see beach houses where this idea of whites and sense of brightness for us it was more about dialing that back and trying to create this sense of warmth through lots of neutral tones and textures. The idea when you walk through the front door whether that's after a long day at work or you've come back from the beach is calmness and through the use of materials. Material might have been used 30, 40 or 50 years ago in a Mount Martha beach house but reinterpreted for 2025 and beyond. The crazy paving the use of the timber lining particularly in the main kitchen living area and the guest suite the natural stone benchtops and I think when we look around the spaces that sense of texture calmness is hopefully pretty evident. The typical speculative home is built economically and for profit essentially but my passion for architecture and quality homes really drew me down the path of delivering something that was really unique and special. The space has a beautiful calming feeling and everyone that walks through is overwhelmed. The role of the landscape was very important in the final outcome. We want the user to experience and certainly from internal spaces to enjoy views to the landscape so Bethany Williamson worked on all four homes. Her brief and the requirement was to balance what's appropriate in the Mount Martha context in terms of plants and feeling and how do we create a landscape that is mensurate with the what is ultimately a speculative home that has to be built for a budget to be able to be sold. When you come over the crossover and you walk to the front door you're walking across loose gravel that immediate crunch of the gravel reminds you that you're not in an urban environment. And then just the little glimpses as you move through the home into the garden whether it's the crushed rock or the granitic sand ground covers and the pops of greenery that just bring a sense of calmness. There's a few moments in the honey house that remind me why I love being an architect. Often hallways can just be considered as ways to link between key spaces but the hallway and the spine here is a space in itself and it's a place you're happy to pause and stop and enjoy and the concrete block blades which are there to actually shade the afternoon western sun incidentally the shadow play that that creates really, really beautiful at different times of the year. Going into that higher detail architectural is the time it takes to get things right and I was conscious of not departing from the intent. To build detail takes time and it costs money and you have to go through that process of juggling whether it's worthwhile following through or scaling some things back to remain on budget. It's been quite some years and I think the outcome has exceeded that even. We'll look back on the seven years working with Christian and the Ongarelo team really, really fondly and really appreciative of the effort he's gone to to ensure the design intent that started on a bit of yellow trace has followed through into the four homes and I think what's often forgotten in architecture is it's always about the outcome it's always about the finished product and the process which is a lot of blood, sweat and tears can be forgotten or glossed over but there was very few tears and this is as much a celebration of the process as it is the outcome. One thing we realised after living here for a couple of years is the lack of connections to the backyard. The backyard was almost untouched at a point so the question that we kind of keep on asking ourselves is how do we make that physical connection as well as visual connection to the backyard and that's where the project started. We came across this house in Studley Park it was a Peter McIntyre house I remember I walked up the stairs and saw the beautiful elm tree display on the living room window and it's amazing and that really blew me away. The house is immersed in landscape on the street, to the living room as you walk in to the courtyard landscape is all part of it. When you pull up in front of our house you will see the original Peter McIntyre building in full it's a beautiful kind of modernist house. As you come in through the front door a flight of staircases take you up onto the ground floor. When you come up it's the living area and the living area has a full view to the north to the elm tree that we love and in that room we pretty much tear it down to the bare bones and resurface every part of that house. It's part of the restoration process we didn't add our spin to it it's more about restoring what the original Peter McIntyre design was. We upgraded the roof we put double glazing through all the existing windows and make it become quite a liveable space. As you progress through the house eventually you end up in the kitchen and dining area and this is where you start to realise the work that I have put into this house it has this massive void that becomes one of the supposed architectural statements that houses the staircase as well as the original rafters which we kept to humanise the space by lowering it down while you are sitting in the dining table. The original master bedroom was so small and so pooky and we wanted to have this expanded space that allowed the room to breathe. The room also has that amazing view to the courtyard. I told myself many, many years ago after travelling to Japan a few times I need to buy one of those soaking bathtubs the timber one and I did and it's a beautiful crafted piece that sits in the ensuite and when you open the lid up the smell of the cedar infuses the bathroom so dramatically that transports you back to a Japanese onsen. The whole idea of the house when the original family that engaged Peter McIntyre is to have a courtyard house and to us a courtyard house actually makes sense in Australian climate or in Melbourne climate because you can easily adapt and open up to have the house breathable and cross ventilation. Every part of this house has a view to the courtyard and the courtyard opens up and it becomes part of the indoor and the outdoor connections. When it comes to designing the landscape in this place we have engaged mud office. Comparing to what it was before the courtyard was completely paved and now it has plants growing in actual soil and trees growing in the courtyard it transforms it into a completely different spaces. On the way to the extension upstairs we go up the new staircase. I want it to almost like hang in space I don't want it to feel heavy because it is in the view from the dining table to the backyard garden and it still needs to be quite transparent. As you go up we have intentionally direct the exit of the staircase to the view of the entire backyard and that's when you get the full view of the entire garden. You can see the terrace landscape you can see the dining level, native plants as well as the swimming pool. As you walk along towards the rumpus area the view eventually opens up to both the north and the south and that is where the bifold doors open up as well as the drawbridge on the south. And then there are two of my kids' bedrooms that faces to the north. The challenge of course is how do we deal with the steepness of the site. The landscape at the back was terrace but the challenge becomes how do you then connect the house to the landscape itself and that's where the idea of that drawbridge come in. When the drawbridge open up it connects to the backyard and that link of upstairs extension becomes both connected to the old part of the house as well as the new landscape and that is what I feel most proud. Core architectural idea for my work adding on to the original Peter McIntyre revolve around how do we still keep the McIntyre principle while having my own spin on things. The first thing that comes to mind is the central courtyard and how my extension can benefit from that courtyard which is also part of connecting to the courtyard and the landscape. When we are upstairs this connection still exists and I think that is where it started. Modernist architecture has this simplicity to them in a way that building dimensions are modest and because of that post-war era where materials are scarce architect has to utilise off-the-shelf item and that's where I think the original simplicity thing or the idea of simplicity come from. And when I did this house I start to think about how this notion can be carried through. This house has been finished in a way that it almost has this raw sense of material everything has been stripped back to quite an unfinished surfaces almost feel like a warehouse. I think that is how simplicity come in. A lot of things that I've chosen in this house were off-the-shelf item off-the-shelf building materials put in a more architectural way. When we open up the courtyard we can actually feel physically like the cross ventilation. The whole building is breathing it's almost like the lung of the house and because of that air movement and now that the backyard opened it up like the whole thing just become like this open area. The most amazing thing is when you're upstairs looking to north you can see the landscape of all my neighbours and it changes throughout the season. From upstairs in the foreground is our courtyard and in the background is my neighbours trees and plants and you have no choice but to engage with it whenever you're upstairs and I think that's the beauty of that whole living through the season. That's what people call living in landscape. I think for you to come to us and say we've re-evaluated how we live and we actually think we need less space and we want more garden and we want more amenity but we want to build less I think that was a moment where we realised how values aligned we really were and we were embarking on a really special collaboration. Urban character and architectural character drew me to Port Melbourne in the first place. I love that there's always activity around so you know the cafe is always buzzing pub out the back is always thriving. There's a lot of beautiful parks and gardens and really established old historic trees just across the road. So we've been living in Port Melbourne probably for about 24 years. Some of the things we loved about the house when we first arrived is the Victorian heritage details. There's a lot of inherent charm especially you know in the street frontage which is heritage listed but I guess like a lot of Victorian terraces probably a bit challenged with white and ventilation. It's wonderful to keep cool when it's summertime but really cold and it had an 80s extension tacked on. I remember your pink bathrobe. And this space out the back was actually almost like a conservatory, single glazed and the only heating was an open fire so you can imagine it was really thermally inefficient. Claire and Luke were really looking to improve the thermal envelope of the house and bring in more light and ventilation. He also spoke to us a lot about family and entertaining and how your family comes to visit from Tassie and wanting space to be able to accommodate them. We bought the house in 2013 but didn't live in it because we moved fairly immediately to Copenhagen. We engaged Breathe for some reason before we left and we had a growing family at that time. Two kids and it was a chaotic life and we were thinking oh god we need so much more space. Everyone needs their own room we need a second living space you know let's make this our family home and let's make it big. And then we sort of left Breathe with that brief moved to Copenhagen and really interestingly it completely turned us around on what we need and how we should be living. We in Copenhagen lived in a very small apartment we came to realise that we really didn't need that much room and in fact we loved being and living close together. When we came back to Melbourne then really we changed our brief completely reined it in much more in line with Breathe's philosophy to build less. When you walk through the front door there's the two kids bedrooms stairwell and that all has the Victorian heritage detailing. And you come through and there's sort of a threshold moment between old and new and the original floorboard stop and the new Versailles old floorboards begin and that's when you are in what is the original footprint of the house except for the last metre or so but has been reconfigured into a more sort of contemporary space with the courtyards carved out of it to bring in the light and the ventilation and also to improve the functionality for your family so sort of more open plan kitchen and dining and then the living room that has this beautiful connection out into the landscaped garden and courtyard. And then upstairs we've got your bedroom an extra bathroom and Luke's office. Yeah Luke's study yeah yeah yeah through which you can access the roof garden which wasn't planned but has just evolved. On the other side of the courtyard we've got the new studio which addresses the laneway to the rear. It's a two-storey freestanding studio Claire's office and upstairs is the guest bedroom and bathrooms. This central courtyard that's fairly typical of a Victorian house the light only came into the room via two small windows it wasn't a space you could actually look out into nor use but I think opening that up and adding a big glass slider and a large glass wall all double glazed has been a revelation actually. It's beautiful looking out onto that space and then the rear courtyard between the buildings is only small but it works hard for us because it's like an oasis out there. Beautiful wall of greenery and we've planted a couple of feature trees deliberately we love natives so there's a beautiful twisted banksia that's really starting to grow and there's a gorgeous flowering gum which is going to provide I think ultimately a canopy over the entire space and when you're upstairs in the studio it does feel like you're in a tree house. I love timber and I love brickwork and recycled materials and I love an honesty in materials I like to use the material and for it to just speak to what it is. I don't like applied finishes and I think we said to you minimise plasterboard, minimise paint and I think that's really why this space is so successful in my opinion. We were always looking for ways to lower the embodied energy of the project so looking almost exclusively at recycled material because the recycled brick is really the hero of the materials palette and certainly in the studio it's basically every surface so it's double brick, recycled brick to the outside recycled brick to the inside and recycled brick floors as well except for on the mezzanine level which has the oiled yellow tongue. So just keeping it super simple and using less material. The stack bond formation of the brickwork I think is beautiful it's contemporary so while the bricks are recycled it just looks so stylish and people often stop out the back of the place and say hey I haven't seen that pattern of brickwork that often. As far as the internal materials palette the recycled hardwood floorboards are Taz Oak they're recycled from other homes around Victoria and I love that they speak to the existing floorboards which are the Baltic Pine but they are a different size and character and they're local instead of imported. Every time I come to your house I just love the way that the patina is developing on the materials has a really beautiful authenticity about the materials. The key elements of the house that's really successful I think is the lighting. I'm not a big fan of down lights they have a time and a place when you need sort of work and bright light but I love just the lighting scenes and really wanted a house that was lit really thoughtfully and carefully with warm light actually enhancing each of the unique individual spaces with a really special lighting piece. We were very keen to minimise our footprint and really touching the planet lightly. We've got a six kilowatt solar panel system and it's not an easy thing to do to fit an old Victorian with not ideal orientation with solar panels and a huge street tree but we've done our absolute best. So we've got the induction cooktop as well and you've got the rainwater garden. All of the masonry provides an extraordinary amount of thermal mass which stabilises the temperature over time and then just like really high performance double glazed windows, thermally broken aluminum making sure that we're creating a really airtight and an insulated thermal envelope. I think one of the key sustainability moves is actually just building less as well that re-evaluation of the brief and considering how much you really needed to build is like a tremendous contribution to the sustainability aspects of the project. Brook and Gable House is a really beautiful humble example of living in a small footprint of a family re-evaluating what they need to reduce their impact on the planet and one of the things that's been really special about this project is the values alignment between yourself and Luke and Breathe as well and because of that we've been able to deliver a collaborative project that really heroes sustainability reducing embodied energy, generating power on site and really honouring the way that you live as a family in a really simple, robust and thoughtful way.