Strathfield Compact Heritage Home
A Family Home Built Within a Heritage Height Limit, on Under 200 Square Metres
The Site and the Brief
The site is a subdivided corner block of under 200 square metres in a heritage conservation area in Strathfield. It began as a small structure at the rear of a larger property — low ceilings, little storage, and no real connection to the outdoors. Rather than sell and look elsewhere, the clients chose to invest in design and stay in a location that already suited them, close to schools, family and work.
Heritage
Heritage controls ruled out extending upward, so the additional level was built within the existing envelope rather than on top of it. Floor area roughly doubled as a result, without the house reading as any larger from the street. The gabled roofline was retained, adjusted only as far as heritage approval required.
A base of Hawthorn brick keeps the house grounded within the surrounding streetscape, with a darker Monument-toned metal cladding above set apart deliberately rather than matched to it.
A Considered Interior
Ceilings sit higher than the original, with skylights and window placement bringing light in from more than one direction, and the living space opening onto a courtyard. Both parents work from home, with young children needing rooms that can change use through the week — joinery doubles as both storage and room divider, sliding doors let spaces open up or close off as needed, and small work nooks are tucked into corners rather than given their own rooms.
There’s no extension pushing into the garden, and no attempt to compete with neighbouring homes for size. The result comes from how carefully the plan was considered within 130 square metres, not from finding a way around that number.
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