Much of our older housing stock provides a built record of a city’s changing social fabric. Helvetia, a two-storey terrace built in the early nineteenth century on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people, is a building that is rich with layers of adaptation that reflect the ways that household demographics have changed as waves of gentrification rolled through Fitzroy, a formerly working-class suburb of Melbourne. The challenge for owners and architects often lies in unpicking these layers and determining what to retain and what to remove.
In its more recent past, this grand Victorian corner terrace was divided into rooms and self-contained apartments, isolating spaces across the home’s interior while simultaneously establishing a series of laneway connections. A 1960s conversion
