Situated in Melbourne, Australia, this beautiful single family residence was completely redesigned in 2016 by Matt Gibson A+D.

Description by Matt Gibson A+D
The Barrington heritage area in Melbourne is known for being an area of heritage significance containing high quality heritage villas, set within garden settings – the kind of characteristics identified that make Melbourne one of the World?s most livable cities.
At the same time Melbourne is going through steep population boom bringing pressure to densify quickly and leading to the demolition of underutilized land parcels that contain historic buildings. Melbourne Planners and Architects face the ongoing challenge to balance optimal land utilization with the ability to cater for a diversity of housing types which includes the responsive upgrading of heritage protected properties. By removing a previous non-original addition the adaptation of this gold rush era Victorian heritage villa wasn?t about increasing the size of the dwelling nor about deliberately removing a chunk of its existing heritage fabric just to downsize it, instead the existing rooms are repurposed around a more fluid and flexible spatial arrangement ensuring space isn?t wasted. The contemporary addition challenges the concept of building low quality, replica additions that attach themselves to the heritage fabric and in effect compromise confuse and diminish the integrity of the original. The intervention here is instead c...