Continuing Relevance – Albert Park Terrace by Luke Fry Architecture and Interior Design

Injecting a revised sense of self into a tired Victorian-era row house, Albert Park Terrace uses gestures of privacy and introspection to emulate the feeling of home. Luke Fry Architecture and Interior Design embeds a muted and calming palette to ensure a continued relevance and connection to its owners.

In amongst the integral Victorian-era buildings of inner Melbourne, Albert Park Terrace is a familiar and common story – the need to retain a sense of connection to the past and its history whilst infusing the space with a fresh, contemporary relevance. A calming palette of natural and neutral tones blankets the home through cohesive elements, ensuring that a consistency and flow underpins every space. Bringing in natural light can also be a transformative element while, at the same time, ensuring privacy. Luke Fry Architecture and Interior Design embraces the proportions and lofted internal volumes set by the original home and achieves an emphasis of height through colour blocking.

A calming palette of natural and neutral tones blankets the home through cohesive elements, ensuring that a consistency and flow underpins every space.

Built by BD Projects, fluted glass is used as a key mechanism to both diffuse and soften light, similarly adding a privacy veil for the occupants. The patterned glass also becomes a subtle and textural feature internally, bringing in a sense of movement through its ripples. Building on a previous double-brick extension that added to the original features of the home, the new works remain relatively contained on the upper level, where an additional master bedroom and laundry were added. The kitchen is also reworked, while a common palette is applied throughout, bringing each of the spaces together through a shared union and directive.

The effort of merging new and old together requires an attuned balance. Encouraging greater engagement with natural northern light was a key element of the brief, as was applying a clean and linear approach to the new insertions. The new sits comfortably against the old – they are both expressed in their own ways and do not compete. While the home sits within narrow walls, long and lean in its site, the upper level provides an opportunity to connect with the elements and to the wide streets beyond. A similar language from the reeded glass also informs the internal approach, with joinery and cornicing following suit.

A similar language from the reeded glass also informs the internal approach, with joinery and cornicing following suit.

Albert Park Terrace carefully navigates the traditional dilemma of renovating a heritage home through the use of a restive and subdued approach, seeing Luke Fry Architecture and Interior Design apply a controlled simplicity.