Ageing Gracefully
The owners of this two-bedroom-plus-study cottage in Melbourne’s Williamstown lived here happily for 14 years before their growing family prompted a move to a larger home. In 2017, a couple of years before retirement and with their grown children now living independently, the couple returned to sustainably renovate their beloved 90-year-old abode, now sagging wonkily around waterlogged foundations.
Enter young architect Amy Bracks of then-fledgling ioa studio, who teamed up with collaborator Don Gallagher to overhaul the existing heritage home and create a rear addition. The idea was to use as many sustainable, recycled and reclaimed materials as possible and new technologies like a Tesla solar battery and roof tiles. Ironically, the latter didn’t make it through planning despite being flush to the roofline and thus less visible than regular solar panels. Go figure.
The brief was a home that allowed the couple to
