This project is a considered alterations and additions to an attached heritage listed cottage in the Wakefield Gardens Precinct, Ainslie.

Our work on the heritage-listed cottage at Wakefield Gardens included removing the existing rear facing 1970’s annex and the addition of a new clerestory addition. The work also included reconfiguration to the existing internal layout. The work also includes the reconfiguration of the existing studio and garage

The original 1938 double brick three bedroom attached cottage has a north frontage to the street. A 1970’s rear annex provided a secondary living space as a south facing addition. Although it provided connection to the rear yard, it had poor access to winter sun. Additionally, the annex resulted in an unusual and impractically sized living and dining space.

Our work removed the annex to expose the original envelope of the heritage listed house. The design for the new addition is derived from a sectional study of the existing house. This move thereby creates a new form based on the original in an interpretative way. The replicated form is hollowed out to create a clerestory type volume, lightly connected to the existing building. A box gutter and bulkhead creates a transitional space between new and existing. It provides the opportunity to expose the original Canberra Red brickwork of the existing house as an internal feature to the new addition. Additionally, the clerestory roof and pitched building form allows for a series of highlight windows providing winter north sun into a south facing addition.

The addition consists of a new kitchen, dining room living space and main bedroom with ensuite. The dining room and kitchen extends beyond the line of the existing dwelling. This creates the opportunity for a northern landscape connection from the dining room to a new courtyard and water feature. Minor reconfiguration to the existing dwelling layout ensure legibility of planning between new and old elements and improved storage and amenity.

External materials, colours, and textures to the addition are an interpretation of materials of the existing cottage. Canberra Red brickwork and terracotta roof tiles clad the existing dwelling. The dark grey gutter and fascia reads as a horizontal banding line indicating the change between both materials. The new addition extends this language. The box gutter zone becomes a visual horizontal banding between charred timber wall cladding and a pale cream standing seam metal cladding to the clerestory roof. Without copying existing materials, new materials complement the textural and pattern quality of the existing. The box gutter zone and associated blade elements are clad in bronze metal. It mimics the warm, muted quality of the Canberra Red bricks.

The character of the new work balances connectivity of the surrounding native landscape and the character of the 1938 Wakefield Gardens original heritage workers cottages by the Department of the Interior.

Typology: 
Single Housing.

Service:
Design and Documentation.

Stage:
Design (ongoing).

Location:
Ainslie, ACT, Ngunnawal Country.

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