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Award-winning Australian architecture, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top architects.

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Award-winning Australian interior design, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top designers.

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In depth features on Australia’s most beautiful gardens and landscape design.

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Weekly recipes and meal ideas from our favourite cooks, authors and foodies.

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All Stories

Architectural Apartment Mid Century Minimalist Family Country Tiny Coastal Victorian Renovated

Small Garden Suburban Garden Country Garden Public Garden Vegetable Garden Coastal Garden

Aboriginal Art Exhibition

Illustration Lighting Interior Design Graphic Design Styling Textiles Furniture Jewellery Photography Craft Floristry Architecture Industrial Design Woodwork Quoted Art Aboriginal Art Ceramics

Lunch Dinner Snacks Salad Vegetarian Breakfast Sweets Gluten Free Drinks Julia Busuttil Nishimura

Fashion Kids Art Ceramics Furniture Gifts Lighting Plants + Flowers Rugs Soft Furnishings In Print Sustainable Design Homewares

Guides Stays

Homes

Australian houses, from architectural masterpieces to suburban family homes, Victorian terraces, mid-century marvels, coastal shacks, city apartments, and everything in between.

Architecture

Award-winning Australian architecture, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top architects.

Interiors

Award-winning Australian interior design, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top designers.

Gardens

In depth features on Australia’s most beautiful gardens and landscape design.

Creative People

Studio visits with Australia’s most talented creatives, from artists to architects, ceramicists to stylists, furniture makers to lighting designers.

Art

Studio visits with Australia’s top artists, and unmissable art exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and beyond.

Food

Weekly recipes and meal ideas from our favourite cooks, authors and foodies.

Travel

Unique travel destinations, design-led accomodation and day trip ideas in Australia and New Zealand.

On The Market

Climate

News

A House Revived From The 1990s

Architecture

There is a lot of 90s nostalgia at the moment – possibly because in a time of climate crisis and global instability, it is comforting to reflect on a time where our biggest responsibilities were keeping a tamagotchi alive or re-winding the video before returning it to Blockbuster.

For CO-AP architects, this Balmain home presented an opportunity to bring a 90s semi-detached single-storey home into the contemporary era. The renovation floods the property with natural light, increases green spaces and introduces a two-storey rear addition. Some 90s trends can probably stay in the past, but as Beyonce has shown us, evolution (or in this case, renovation) can bring the past into a vibrant present!

21st May, 2019

A semi-detached single-storey home gets a contemporary, and two-storey addition. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

90s from the outside, 2010s from the inside. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

A clean and simple palette of terracotta, timber and concrete. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

Kitchen detail in the Balmain Semi home. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

The new design welcomes light into the home. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

A serene and understate vibe. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

Off-form concrete and Australian timber was used in new rear addition. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

The clients chose to develop the landscaping and garden, rather than use the space for off-street parking. Photo – Murray Fredericks.

Not a bad view! Photo – Murray Fredericks.

Miriam McGarry

Tuesday 21st May 2019

‘Maximising daylight and green space was a priority’- Will Fung.

The builder / developer owner of this 1990s two bedroom semi-detached home in Balmain approached CO-AP Architects with a brief to complete the design detail and interiors for an existing planning-approved renovation, and to extend the home via a new two-storey rear addition. Architect Will Fung explains that ‘maximising daylight and green space was a priority’.

Natural light is now encouraged into the home though a series of skylights that Will highlights ‘flood through the upper floor bedroom and penetrate deep into the original house via a new stairwell.’ An elevated planter filled with verdant succulents provides a living privacy screen, and brings fresh greenery into the home.

The interiors mix salvaged structural timbers from the original building (repurposed as stair treads and shelving) with a fresh and simple palette of concrete, terracotta, and stone. Off-form concrete and Australian timber were used in the rear addition, and these materials are echoed between the old and new spaces.

Under the guidance of the client, the architects worked to improve the existing garden through landscaping, rather than create off-street parking. Parks over parking!

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