Writer's House / Branch Studio Architects

Architects: Branch Studio Architects
Area: 344 m²
Year: 2016
Photography: Peter Clarke
Landscape Architect: Plume Studio
Structural Engineer: Perrett Simpson P/L
Design Team: Brad Wray, Simon Dinh, Rowena Henry
Original Architect: Michael R E Feldhagen
Original Furniture: Jakob Rudowski
New Dining & Coffee Tables: Brad Wray Workshop
Rudowski Side Board Restorations: Orchard Design
City: Melbourne
Country: Australia

Writer’s House, designed by Branch Studio Architects and located in Caulfield South, Melbourne, is a 344 m² residence completed in 2016. This renovation and extension project respects the original 1960s design by Michael R.E. Feldhagen while integrating modern elements. The design features extensive internal renovations, full-height steel windows, and contemporary furniture, creating a cohesive blend of past and present.

Writer's house / branch studio architects

Located 10 km south-east of Melbourne, Caulfield South is a suburb with diverse architectural styles, including Edwardian weather-board, Californian Bungalow, and Red & Orange clinker brick.

An increasing trend is evident where these original styles are demolished for large, two-story modern houses, often mock Neo-Georgian or rendered triple-fronted brick veneer.

Around the 1960s and 70s, architects like Ernest Fooks began designing International Modern style houses in Caulfield and nearby areas. Michael R. E. Feldhagen, a protégé of Fooks, completed several exemplary International Modernist Style residences and multi-residential flats during the same period.

Writer’s House involves alterations and additions to an existing orange brick veneer residence initially designed by Feldhagen in the late 1960s. The house was originally built for the current occupants’ grandparents, Jewish Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Australia shortly before constructing the house.

The house features beautiful original custom joinery made specifically for the house by Jakob Rudowski, a local joiner who created much of the area’s furniture in the 1960s and 70s.

After the grandparents’ passing in 2013, the house remained dormant for over two years.

The first meeting with the clients was one of their few visits to the house since the loss, an emotional yet therapeutic event as they planned to extend and celebrate the life of the grandparents’ house through extensive renovations.

Clients Danielle, a digital marketing professional, and Adam, a screenwriter/journalist, were heavily involved in the design and construction process. Adam’s background in writing influenced the design approach, treating individual spaces as chapters of a larger story.

The intention was to ensure new works did not impact the original house’s integrity and memories. A balance was sought between creating a nostalgic museum and removing all existing elements. Existing wallpapers, chandeliers, and building fabric were preserved, with Rudowski furniture restored and some sofas reupholstered.

This existing fabric was set against new contemporary furniture, joinery, and materials, creating a background palette that highlighted both the old and the new. Both rear and front painted timber windows were replaced with full-height steel windows, enriching the interior with warm light.

The project included extensive internal renovations and some external works. A new large ‘party’ deck, flanked by black aluminum perforated privacy screens, addressed practical overlooking issues while extending internal areas for a more flexible internal/external cohesion of space.

An existing dark corridor/foyer space was re-imagined as a light-filled, plywood-lined gallery to display art and surprise visitors. This space also serves as a link, connecting and closing off the living, kitchen, and dining spaces from the more private bedroom areas during entertaining.

A section of wall was removed from the existing kitchen to integrate the dining area and yard back into the house. The kitchen features a minimal yet utilitarian palette of materials and details, with cabinetry configured to hide mess through bi-folding and sliding panels.

Opposite the kitchen, a cozy TV snug space creates an intimate area for watching movies and reading. A large full-height sliding panel allows the space to be part of the main living area or separate and hidden.

Both kitchen and TV snug open to a generous living and dining area, emphasizing restored memories of the past. This area includes a linear rosewood sideboard and a crafted pull-out bar unit by Jakob Rudowski from the 1960s. Reupholstered Rudowski sofas in bright lime green, a custom oak and steel dining table, and rich polished concrete slabs tie the space together. Reflections from external open blockwork and perforated aluminum screens play with light through the full-height steel windows. Operable louvres in the TV snug and main living and dining areas provide cross-ventilation and temperature control.

The other end of the house includes reconfigured bedrooms and bathrooms for the growing family.

A modest powder room, clad in black formply and delicate green tiles, introduces the spaces linking to the foyer/gallery. Three bedrooms and a kids’ bathroom extend from a central corridor, part of which was used for a walk-in robe in the master bedroom. The light-filled master bedroom offers a framed view of the front yard tree canopy. The ensuite features poured in-situ concrete elements, sleek black steel thresholds, mirrors, pendant lights, and filtered natural light for a moody spatial theme.

The downstairs areas have been reconfigured into a self-contained unit for future use by the clients’ children. Currently, these spaces include a whiskey den/wine cellar, a bathroom, and a writing room with direct access to the front courtyard. The courtyard, reclaimed from the unused front garden, is now a practical space for contemplation and relaxation, with a sweeping screen formalizing the area as the sole formal adaptation of the house’s street identity.

From street level, thin steel, double-glazed windows replace the existing front windows. A minimal white color scheme covers the existing stone and aluminum fascias, while black highlights the formal structural lines. The original orange bricks are retained, preserving the house’s history and timeless glory.