Prahran House by Pandolfini Architects and Sophie Davies

Extending a traditional and quaint Victorian-era cottage, Prahran House is given a new and more generous life to accommodate its growing young family. Pandolfini Architects and Sophie Davies balance the character and charm of heritage elements with a contemporary crispness for a revised relevance.

Located in its namesake, the heritage cottage sits nestled in amongst similar era homes, all retained through their own interpretive lenses. Although reflective of the original origins of the residence, the owners’ growing family required the footprint to be expanded to allow for a comfortable habitation of their coming chapters.

While keeping the heritage frontage in place, the addition expands on the previous two-bedroom home and adds an additional bedroom and bathroom, opening generously through a shared living zone into a beautifully curated courtyard garden setting. With architecture by Pandolfini Architects and interior design by Sophie Davies, the team worked to infuse some of the original charm of the home with a balanced openness, allowing the family to come together and be apart as needed.

A careful crafting of the original home, Prahran House is built by Davies Henderson with landscape design by famed landscape architect Paul Bangay. Important to the extended narrative was keeping the home’s character and detailed elements, maintained by ensuring every new gesture felt deliberate and as an evolution into the new. Purchased with a 1990s extension already added to the rear, the first step saw its removal to make way for a set of cohesive and binding principles.

Like any modern home, guaranteeing an open and connecting living space was crucial to allowing occupants to come together and balance out the other more separated areas in the process.

A key part of the brief for the family of four was that the new had to feel like a natural progression of the old and not feel distinctly different or in competition. Looking to European influences, as well as a seamless integration of heritage and contemporary additions, the proposal takes a formalised approach with traditional moments, timber crafted features and a palette that emphasises personality. Oak timber flooring binds each of the spaces throughout, whilst polished nickel fixtures and fittings, stone and specialised plaster finishes add a variety of textures, balancing one another.

By retaining the essentials and building outward and upward, Prahran House nurtures the essence of the original home. Pandolfini Architects and Sophie Davies add a sense of connection and identity of its current custodians, in keeping with the original framework of the residence.