Charles Residential Design

This residential project opens up a small timber cottage, bringing in the sky, garden and salty ocean air.

On a small block in a narrow street in South Fremantle, this project opens up a small timber cottage, bringing in the sky, garden and salty ocean air. Designed for a middle-aged couple, the extension adds new living and dining spaces on the ground floor and a master bedroom suite over, the plan is carefully arranged around an existing paperbark tree while creating opportunities for new courtyards and spaces around the house. 

A house once closed and insular has become open and expansive, but this is layered with surprising moments and considered connections between spaces. Arranged along a spine of heavy brick walls, the split level living and dining areas are slightly physically separated yet maintain oblique visual connections above and below new timber joinery.

The external materials are robust and low maintenance but their detailing is considered and the project feels entirely ‘of its place’. At the lower level, bagged brick continues from inside, while on the level above painted weatherboard references the existing weatherboard cladding of the original house.

The master bedroom is shaded to the north by an operable batten screen, with the timber quickly greying off in the harsh West Australian sun. Internally the project avoids high-end finishes and materials for a restrained palette of timber floors, bagged brick walls and painted timber ceilings.

As with many of Cast Studio residential projects, the existing house had its own charm and needed only minimal work to keep it in use for years to come. A new bathroom, powder room and laundry were inserted and a sculpted, funnelled connection was made with the extension.