OH HOUSE
Location
Fitzroy North, Victoria
Country
Wurundjeri
Completed
2021
Project Team
Raphaela Glavas
Builder
Clancy Constructions
Photographer
Tatjana Plitt
Text
Stephen Crafti
Awards
2020 Victorian Architecture Awards, Shortlist
2021 BLT Built Design Awards, Winner
2021 Houses Awards, Shortlist
Media
The Local Project
Lunchbox Architect
Dwell
Grand Designs Magazine
Est Living
House & Garden
If not for a bright yellow front door, this North Fitzroy terrace would give little indication that anything has changed. Completed quietly in mid-2021, the project was designed and built largely during Melbourne’s lockdowns, emerging with little fanfare into a neighbourhood that knows this typology well.
Located near Edinburgh Gardens, OH House is an alterations and additions project on a dual-frontage site. The approach was deliberately split. The street-facing elevation remains respectful of its Victorian context, while the rear adopts a more contemporary language, drawing on the area’s long tradition of incremental architectural change. Rather than expanding upward or outward, the footprint barely increases, preserving precious courtyard space and allowing light and air to do more of the work.
Internally, the project is less about addition than reorganisation. Dark, inefficient rooms have been reworked into a compact but generous ground floor, centred on the kitchen. One of the owners is a professional chef, and the kitchen was always intended to be the social heart of the house. Positioned beside the new stair, it stitches the original rooms to the rear addition, dissolving the usual hierarchy between cooking, dining and living. Large sliding doors open directly to the landscaped courtyard, extending daily life outdoors.
Material choices reinforce this sense of continuity. A restrained monochrome kitchen palette is softened by tongue-and-groove timber flooring, while European oak joinery and bespoke furniture bring warmth to the living spaces. Long, finely detailed shelves accommodate the owners’ collection of Japanese objects, giving the lounge a quieter, more introspective character.
At the upper level, privacy becomes a more visible architectural driver. Operable battens and steel screens temper overlooking and sunlight, particularly to the main bedroom balcony, while still allowing filtered views to the surrounding rooftops and trees.
Modest in scale and ambition, the project avoids spectacle. Instead, it offers something more durable: a house re-tuned to the way its owners live now, and one that can adapt again over time.