Sitting within a prized heritage estate, Hawthorn Gable House is a sensitive contemporary response for a young family. By borrowing traditional materials and forms, and adapting them to a modern language, the home contains a richness in expression alongside a simplicity of layout, making for a pleasurable home to inhabit.

The brief was simple - to deliver a functional, beautiful, contemporary family home that honoured the history of the old interwar home, whilst being financially efficient.  

Through the careful retention of the existing floor plan, roofing tiles, gable forms, small brick garage, simple decorative timber work and textured renders typify the homes in this historic estate, and forms the language for this modern adaptation. 

Maintaining the traditional smaller room layout provides significant financial and sustainable benefits, whilst creating a functional solution for housing 3 young children. Subtle links are created vertically, horizontally and to surrounding landscape, establishing connection and surveillance, whilst minimising impact on each other. 

To meet the brief for 'light filled, whilst retaining warmth and texture', a top lit, double height entry void was carved from the home's centre, with raked plaster and timber screens filtering light.

The original gabled garage is retained and re-purposed as kitchen, providing important links to the historical form and layout of these homes.

A distinctly modern addition is created at the rear of the house, providing open living spaces for the family. The geometry of the roofline as well as the ceramic glazed materiality are a reference to the sloping tile roof of the original building. The classic arch detailing around the entry door is mirrored in a modern counterpart where the glazed opening is framed by and arched cut-out. 

Whilst externally the home presents differently from front to back, the transition of internal language from traditional to contemporary is handled as a kind of overlapping and intertwining, making the addition and traditional home difficult to separate, allowing for the richness of both to be evident.

Team:

Architects: Splinter Society

Photographer: Sharyn Cairns