“These clients came with a huge block of land in Melbourne’s Kew with an handsome, existing Victorian-era villa, with ramshackle additions, and a family of six children. Our brief was to marry old and new and deliver liveable solutions’, Rob Mills.

This was an exercise in creating relationships between what existed and what was introduced, in terms of proportion and materiality, while boldly inserting the determinedly new. The entrance, for example, is a passage through two cylindrical towers, which connect to glass walkways combining pure geometry with a feeling to lightness. This entry sequence sets up an expectation and mediates between heritage home and the significant contemporary additions.

“If the bones of the house and land are good a great quality of life can be achieved by embracing the variation in scale, the character of existing materials and the intimacy that smaller rooms bring’, says Mills.

In the new scheme the original house was used for bedrooms, music rooms and studies where the reduced scale served the usage well. A parent’s retreat with master bedroom and formal rooms was balanced by a children’s wing with six dormitory-style bedrooms and a rumpus room. The generous kitchen/ dining room was designed for everyone to gather.

The siting of the house, on land which includes a tennis court and swimming pool, ensures that even with its new spacious additions, has room to breathe and the proportion of built form to outdoor space is held in balance.

Taking the cue from his clients for unpretentious materials, such as brick and Australian hardwoods, the house is beautifully detailed but robust and built to last.