Cart 
You can learn a lot about an architect from their own family home.
As the new South Yarra residence of Lande Architects co-founding director Lachlan McArdle, Hawksburn House reveals a dialogue between heritage and modernity — a gap the Melbourne-based studio often masterfully bridges in their work.
Situated in a quiet cul‐de‐sac of single‐fronted terraces, the original home was a double-fronted timber block cottage they had initially intended to keep, before retention proved unfeasible.
While making the ‘hard call’ to demolish the existing house left them with a workable blank canvas, it also offered 20 metres of street frontage to fill.
The challenge was deciding how to design the new build in way that still felt at ease within its existing streetscape.
‘A new house in a heritage street can mimic its neighbours or ignore them,’ Lachlan says.
‘We wanted neither. We took the materials of the area, brick, timber and steel, and used them in a contemporary way, so the house feels both new and familiar.’
To avoid creating an imposing block, the new facade is deliberately broken down with varied set backs and curves, featuring cream-coloured Krause Bricks, customised for the sculptural articulation.
The front fence also stretches across only part of the boundary, leaving room for existing birch trees and foliage that softens the home’s interaction with the street.
This sophisticated conversation between past and present continues inside. Timber lined-windows adds warmth to the robust brickwork, serving as a ‘filter’ between inside and out, as sliding glass doors frame garden views across the open-plan living space.
Lachlan says the focus was on using a small number of quality materials that will develop a beautiful patina over time, rather than date.
Natural stone is a reoccurring motif throughout the interiors, uniting the kitchen, pantry, laundry and bathrooms; Manetti tobacco terracotta tiles feature underfoot; as timber flooring transitions to green carpet in the upstairs spaces.
It’s a forward-thinking house in more ways than one. It has room for the family to grow into, with spaces that accomodate young children now and teenagers later. And for all its contemporary appeal, the building still feels like it ‘belongs’ in the street.
