PROJECTS

Phelan Residence

DETAILS

Arch / Design:		HP & G (web)
Type:		Residential
Year:		2004
Location:		Melbourne
Photographer:		Earl Carter (web)

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PROJECTS PHOTOGRAPHED BY EARL CARTER

IT'S NO SECRET THAT TWO FACTORS play a major part in the renovation of any Victorian terrace house: space and light. In most cases, there isn't much of either. If, however, the house is owned by an interior designer and an architect, chances are that they will find a way to reconfigure the minimal space and maximise the available light to the best possible advantage.

For Kerry Phelan, of Hecker Phelan and Guthrie, and her partner Stephen Javens of Buro+ Architects, the terrace in question is in the inner Melbourne suburb of Parkville and had already been their home for two years at the time of renovation. Kerry's description of the original property conjures up images of the archetypal renovator's dream. "It was shocking. It was so bad it was unliveable," she laughs, betraying the faintest hint of nostalgia. "It was just floorboards with a lick of paint over the top and hundreds of rugs everywhere so it looked really cute and a bit bohemian,"

And it was small. Along with the neighbouring terrace, the house is the narrowest in the local area - it measures just four metres wide on the outside but the block is 33 metres long. In a triumph of looking at problems from a different angle, they were able to turn a weakness into strength. Kerry explains: "We took the view that if we had some sort of opening on the long side that accessed, say, a living space then we could actually say that it was 33 metres wide and four metres long." The fact that this extra-wide northern "frontage" was bounded by a laneway rather than another terrace house - and so clearing the way for plenty of natural light - was a bonus.

Entering the property from the street, there is little to suggest that the familiar Victorian facade conceals anything other than a familiar Victorian floor plan. In fact, the first third of the house has essentially been left in its original form. Doors and a wall have been removed to connect the living room to the original bedroom, creating an open but intimate lounge and study area. Those painted floorboards have been covered with a warm red Tretford carpet that provides an important bridge between the rusticity of the original joinery and brickwork, and Kerry and Stephen's contemporary lounge furniture. It is in this living area that the strong personality of the house a distinct mix of old and new, of commercial products and found objects - takes root.

A small anteroom nestles between two bluestone thresholds and forms a link between the largely untouched front rooms and the more heavily renovated middle and rear sections of the house. The red stripe of Tretford gives way to narrow, dark timber floorboards that are the last vestige of this part of the original building. Rather than pushing this section of the northern wall to the full width of the block, or knocking it out altogether to flood the space in natural light, Kerry and Stephen decided to leave a small area open for a side courtyard garden.

"With brick walls facing north a lot of people would have said 'why didn't you knock this bit down?' but we liked the idea of living in a house that has pools of light and then pools of shadow," says Kerry. "When it's just all light you feel like living in a space with your sunglasses on continually and it can be boring and," she adds, in a tone of mock concern, "it can fade your fabric on your sofas!"

Two existing windows were knocked out and replaced by full-length glass doors that provide access to the side garden from the dining room. The doors let in plenty of sunlight, but it can be controlled. With the venetian blinds open, the dining room is a bright, sparsely furnished space: if the front living area is best suited to lounging in front of the open fire with a good book, then the dining room is a perfect place to spread out a newspaper on the table and sip one's way through a morning pot of tea. And although the flat white walls and unobtrusive fittings give the room a more contemporary feel, the effect certainly isn't conventional or predictable. Eclecticism prevails again: there is the dark timber of the floor, the blond wood of the dining table and CD racks, and ash grey shelves, not to mention Kerry's collection of wooden African stools. "I have every possible colour of timber in here," she laughs, "but it works."

In the kitchen, the modern feel of stainless steel appliances, dark timber veneer and marble is again offset by a note of individuality Kerry's other collection, of Scandinavian glassware, fines the tops of the cupboards at a little above eye height. It is yet another sign that this interior is not beholden to any one domineering, transient style. Rather, the house's character is typified by a free diversity of modes that refuses to deny the building's origins while also acknowledging the contemporary tastes of its occupants. As natural as this reflection of personality through interior design may seem, it was also partly an intentional process to ensure the stylistic longevity of the renovation. "There's a style you can do that ages quite gracefully. If we start off with fairly minimal planning and a minimal colour palette, the layering on top of that is the thing that will date more than anything," says Kerry. "For me it's easy to pack all this stuff up and put it away and then get something else out that I might admire now more than yesterday or tomorrow. I'm thinking I might have a chandelier in the front, and I would never have done those four years ago, and I might remove the venetian blinds at the back and replace them with curtains."

This ideology of simplicity and layering not only makes it easy for a house's interior to be kept up to date but also values the preservation of original elements of older buildings while subjecting them to unmistakeably modern styling. Kerry sees this as a recent development in Australian interior architecture and design. "I think what people will do is look back at when it became acceptable to look to the old to be the new," she explains. "In all the magazines you look at, like those from Italy and France, you see these fairly modern insertions into old buildings and, for a long time, that didn't happen here - you either gutted everything and did a completely new interior or you did it in a chintzy Victorian way. I think people are now happy to accept the fact that something is old and that it's okay to put in modern bathroom fittings, kitchens and furniture."

Stephen designed an extension for the rear of the house to cater for a new bathroom and bedroom. Taking the opportunity to test an idea in the relatively risk-free non-client environment, Kerry developed a sliding door with concealed tracks for the bathroom. The large green panel, set against the white walls of the passage and dark brown interior of the modern bathroom, is illuminated by light from a row of small windows along the top of the opposite wall. A small amount of sunlight enters just below the level of the ceiling, generating a wash of softer, reflected light throughout the short passage.

The relatively spartan bedroom is dominated by a striking Deborah Paauwe photograph, the red carpet in the background recalling the Tretford in the front rooms. It is a neat, if subtle, link between the two ends of the house and that this connection comes through art is no surprise - paintings, small sculptures and trinkets play influential cameos in every room.

Of course, the dwelling will always exist within the narrow plot dimensions dictated by its Victorian terrace origins but, thanks to an artful exploitation of its elongated footprint, it no longer creates the impression of living in a tram. What once was a compartmentalised corridor is now a succession of unique spaces, some lighter and some darker but all with a common character. "The house has an intimacy that's really beautiful to live in," Kerry observes. The client, it seems, is happy.

But that's not the end of the story - when pushed; Kerry admits that the design of their home is an ongoing process. "I suppose that's part and parcel of being a designer," she says. "There are always these things that you are continually looking to. You might get some art or some old or new furniture and that then informs what you should do next." Thanks to Kerry and Stephen's simple approach to planning, colour and layering, the continual updating of their home's interior won't have to be a major operation.