Two Rooms, Footscray extends a previously renovated heritage cottage with a simple brief: to include two additional spaces with competing needs: a room to gather, and a room to withdraw.
The two new rooms—a living room for shared moments, anchored to kitchen, dining, and garden; and a self-contained studio, quiet and adaptable, offering solitude without disconnection. Each demanded a strong relationship to the garden, yet required fundamentally different atmospheres.
On a narrow urban site, these opposing conditions find balance. The rooms are conceived as mirrored pods, set apart to frame a central garden—a shared sanctuary carved from density, where life unfolds between enclosure and openness.
Clad in Corten steel, the volumes recall the memory of corrugated tin sheds that once occupied the back garden. Their rusted utilitarian language is recast with precision and care. Faceted ends fold and conceal fully stackable glazed doors, dissolving the boundary between inside and out. Like a verandah reimagined, they temper the seasons—drawing in low winter sun and casting shade in summer.
Inside, a warm lining of birch ply and finely crafted joinery softens the metal shell. Timber dowel detailing brings a quiet rhythm to the interiors. Though differing in pace and purpose, the two rooms speak in a shared architectural language.
Between them, the garden becomes the heart—held, protected, and quietly expansive. The living room pod connects back to the existing house through a slender glazed link, marking a gentle threshold between past and present.
