Teens often gift their parents mess and chaos, so this Carlton couple tried to design their way out of it.
The owners of the inner-Melbourne terrace wanted to create a home that could be shared with their teenage children’s friends, more like a community centre or military mess hall.
The two-storey single-fronted home seems relatively intact from the street, but inside are light-filled contemporary spaces with only a few nods to period roots – the most prominent a Victorian fireplace in the front room, which the family refer to as their “parlour”.
“Our clients wanted the home to be quite flexible but offer spaces where parents and their children could gather, pursuing creative activities, whether drawing, music recitals or play readings,” says architect Michael Roper, director of Architecture architecture.
Many of the interior chunky walls, typical of Victorian houses, were removed and either opened up, or, in the case of the front parlour, replaced with fluted glass and expressed steel bracing. Even the original staircase, which once required a series of manoeuvres, was replaced with steps that followed a straight line using recycled timber.
Roper also replaced a warren of other rooms, including the kitchen, dining room and lean-tos at the back, with one large generous open-plan kitchen and living area. Pivotal to the design are two operable steel benches, on casters, that allow the space to be occupied by larger groups.
Given terraces share party walls, the other strategic move was to create a wall of glass bricks on the northern/side elevation, complete with a skylight and built-in steel planter box to green up the interior.
Another part of the brief was to create a design that would accommodate the owner’s extensive collection of books. So, there are built-in-bookshelves in the parlour and also in the dining area, which is loosely delineated from the main area by spotted gum timber walls and ceiling. And in the modest studio – a take on the Victorian outhouse or garden shed – there are wall-to-wall bookshelves, visible from the main living areas.
“This studio is also fairly flexible. Currently, it’s used as a study, separated from the garden (designed by landscape architects Shape & Form). But it could also be used as a bedroom when one of the children gets older and wants more independence,” says Roper, pointing out the second bathroom which forms part of this detached building, the only one at ground level.
Upstairs, three bedrooms, including the main bedroom, share one bathroom. It’s a refreshing shift away from the trend of each bedroom having its own ensuite.
Another big change by Architecture architecture is to reshape the rear wall of one of the children’s bedrooms, angling a new glazed wall to echo the raked ceiling of the studio, increasing light into the room and also ensuring a neighbour’s light is not reduced.
Mess Hall house, relatively modest in scale at 116 square metres, sits on an equally modest 145 square metre plot about six metres wide. Every move had to be measured.
An original arched alcove in the front entry was lined in mirror to reflect light and accentuate the space. Likewise, the pale blue terrazzo used – for the kitchen’s splashback, as a plinth for the new staircase and featured in the main bathroom – is a gesture to Carlton’s Italian community that made its presence felt in the 1950s and enriched the broader city in the process.
Mess Hall, in the same vein, brings a level of richness to the fabric of the inner city, concealed behind its more formal Victorian facade.
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Stephen Crafti is a specialist in contemporary design, including architecture, furniture, fashion and decorative arts.
