Houses

This issue of Houses marks a milestone: our 150th issue. The magazine has evolved since it was first launched more than 30 years ago, but its premise of championing innovative and inspiring Australian residential architecture and design has remained.

Minjerribah, as it is known by the Quandamooka people, is an undeniably magical place. It is the world’s second-largest sand island, and it is reached from Brisbane by ferry across the calm waters of Moreton Bay. Home to a rich array of flora and fau

Every architecture project has to grapple with the inherent constraints and opportunities of the given site. The unique mix of each of these, combined with the client brief, creates the mould in which the design can be formed. When architects Jemima

The word “constraint” sometimes carries negative connotations. However, dealing with constraints can push architects to achieve great things – and this house by DFJ Architects, located in a small coastal hamlet north of Byron Bay, is an elegant examp

Jenna Reed Burns Can you tell me a bit about yourselves? Giselle Finnane I come from a large, extended, Sydney-based family and grew up in Eastwood. I’m now a partner in a Sydney law firm. Liam Farlow I grew up in Lismore, where my family still live

House on a Lane focuses on finely tuning the brief for a family home. It actively avoids features and attention, instead seeking to be a hard-working, silent helping hand to its occupants. Throughout the design of this addition, liveability has been

Something that we perhaps don’t discuss enough in the context of single residential architecture is the gap that can often exist between the architect’s intent and the clients’ aspirations. It would be untrue to imagine that the two are always aligne

Architect Maria Danos and her client connected over a shared cultural psyche, both being Australian-born with Greek backgrounds. The task of redesigning the 1920s property in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh into a multigenerational home was therefor

Casa Mia is not like the other houses found on its street. Local design guidelines prescribed a “modern-style” in reference to the 1962 Commonwealth Games Village homes nearby in the coastal Perth suburb of City Beach. Set within a newly established

Balmoral Residence was a renovation of our own postwar home in Brisbane. Designed with my partner Wei while we were each working as employees in bigger practices, it was a spare-time labour of love in both its design and its build. Having grown up an

For the owners of St Martins Lane, a crossroads had been reached. The family was bursting at the seams and on the cusp of relocating to gain additional space, of both the built and garden variety. But, unwilling to let go of their location – wedged b

For many young adults, moving out of the family home is a daunting prospect: housing affordability, low wage growth and the cost of higher education mean that, for those who have the choice, living in the family home into early adulthood is the most

There’s a peculiar alchemy at play in the work of Sibling Architecture – a way of effortlessly weaving people and place into the very fibre of the building itself. These are houses that tell you something about the person that lives within them, that

In late 1961, Australia was emerging from a credit squeeze that had deeply impacted housing affordability. This, combined with a booming postwar population, a growing demand for standalone family houses, and a skilled labour shortage meant that deman