Ellis House is a renovation of a Heritage Victorian weatherboard cottage typology in Melbourne’s inner suburbs. The project reconfigures the existing dwelling through a precise and restrained architectural strategy that improves spatial clarity, enhances natural light access and strengthens connection to the rear garden. Positioned as a victorian cottage extension, the work carefully balances heritage retention with contemporary spatial transformation.

Set on a narrow six-metre-wide site, the extension is highly compact and efficient, structured through a series of deliberate architectural moves that maximise volume, daylight and environmental performance. The design operates as a study in constraint, where spatial economy becomes a generator of clarity and proportion.

The extension is oriented towards the rear landscape, opening the house to the garden and establishing a stronger relationship between interior and exterior space. A central linear light shaft defines the primary organising axis of the new work, drawing natural light deep into the lower level and structuring the spatial sequence from front to rear.

A secondary void above the kitchen introduces vertical connection between floors, linking children’s spaces above with the main living areas below. This layered spatial configuration reinforces visual continuity across levels while maintaining functional separation where required. Together, these voids create a rhythm of light, openness and framed connection throughout the home.

The kitchen and living areas are conceived as a continuous social space, with integrated joinery and seating elements embedded within the architectural fabric. These elements provide informal gathering points while maintaining a calm and uncluttered spatial composition.

Sharp geometries and carved voids articulate movement through the house, generating moments of compression and release that define the experiential quality of the interior. Each threshold is carefully calibrated to enhance perception of scale, light and proportion.

A clear distinction is maintained between the original cottage and the new intervention. While referencing the tonal and material qualities of the surrounding Victorian context, the extension adopts a restrained palette of recycled brick, painted timber and concrete. This layered composition reinforces the project’s identity as a refined victorian cottage extension in Melbourne, where heritage and contemporary architecture coexist through precision, restraint and spatial clarity.