On a subdivided corner block of less than 200 square metres, in a heritage conservation area of Sydney, Chung Architects have completed a small house for a family that decided, quietly, not to move.
The site started life as a granny flat at the rear of a larger property — low ceilings, little storage, no real relationship to the outdoors. Chris and Julie bought it anyway. The location suited them: close to schools, family, work. Rather than sell and look elsewhere, they chose to spend on design instead, and see how far a small footprint could be made to go.
The house doesn't try to hide its constraints. Heritage height limits ruled out any dramatic upward statement, so the architects worked within the existing envelope, adding a level inside rather than on top of it. The floor area roughly doubles as a result, without the building reading as larger from the street. It's a practical solution more than a spectacular one — the kind of move that shows up in daily use rather than in a photograph of the facade.
Materially, the house sits between two registers. A base of Hawthorn brick keeps it grounded in the surrounding streetscape; a darker Monument cladding above sets it apart, plainly, without much argument. The gabled roofline is kept, adjusted slightly to satisfy heritage requirements, which gives the building a familiar outline from a distance and a slightly different one up close.
Inside, the plan doesn't do much showing off. Ceilings are higher than the original, skylights and window placement bring in light from more than one direction, and the living space opens onto a courtyard without much ceremony. It reads as calm rather than expansive — a house that feels larger than its numbers mostly because it isn't wasting any of them.
Both parents work from home, and the children are still young enough to need rooms that can change use through the week. The architects answered this with joinery that doubles as storage and as a room divider, and with sliding doors that let spaces open up or close off depending on what the day requires. Small work nooks are tucked into corners rather than given their own rooms — enough separation to take a call, not so much that the house feels divided.
None of this is unusual on its own. What's notable is how little the project relies on scale to make its case. There's no extension pushing into the garden, no attempt to compete with its neighbours for size. The house works because the plan was considered carefully at 130 square metres, not because it found a way around that number.
For Chris and Julie, the result is a house that lets them stay where they'd already decided to live, now with rooms that keep pace with a family that's still changing shape. It's not an argument for building small so much as a demonstration that, done carefully, small doesn't have to feel like a compromise.
