This project involved the deft revision of a semi-detached house in Rosebery where we added no more than 13 square metres to the footprint, but radically altered how the home feels and functions. It’s called Hat House because the main architectural move is a new roofline over the rear of the house, extending out like the peak of a gentleman’s cap. The rest of the design was about clarifying space.

Its original layout included two front bedrooms, a bathroom, a central living room with no outlook, and a rear lean-to that compressed a small kitchen/dining area, laundry and annexed third bedroom int an awkward cluster. The clients wanted a more substantial family home, with living space oriented to the back yard.

We reorganised the front rooms, turning the bathroom into a master ensuite and the old living room into a third bedroom, second bathroom and laundry. The rear lean-to was demolished, making way for a new combined kitchen, living dining area of 39 square metres, opening it up to the garden with glass sliding doors. Unseen from the street, the new vaulted roofline rises up to the north, where a large clerestory window floods the new space with light.

Underscoring the simplicity is a neutral palette of travertine for the bathrooms, a marble kitchen bench, floorboards of European oak. Walls and kitchen joinery are painted a warm shade of grey, in a datum line around the room that extends into the hallway and outside onto brick pillars.