A Home Made Whole Again – Pompei by Carter Williamson Architects

Pompei by Carter Williamson Architects is a considerately updated terrace house situated in Sydney’s small inner-west suburb of Forest Lodge, reinvigorated through a cleaner circulation of rooms and a light, inviting colour palette.

A a former B&B with lockable rear rooms, the clients sought to turn a building of individual rooms into a home. Carter Williamson Architects’ response was to rationalise the plan, remove redundant function and bring back the historical grandeur of a magnificent high-Victorian terrace, creating an open plan house that is both spacious and contemporary. Downstairs, the living space has been reinvigorated through a cleaner logical circulation of rooms, making the home whole again. The removal of a selection of walls has opened the house to enable spacious living where certain rooms flow into each other – gone are the tight rabbit warren-like spaces.

Pompei’s material and colour palette was arrived at early in the design process. The clients wanted a warm, light palette to complement their family’s life, and the architects landed upon a palette of natural materials. Terrazzo floor anchors the palette, with features in timber, marble, brass and linen curtains accentuating the design. A pastel ochre pink not only complements the clients’ want for a warm, inviting colour palette, but retains the home’s natural, organic feel.

Pompei by Carter Williamson Architects is a considerately updated terrace house situated in Sydney’s small inner-west suburb of Forest Lodge.

This colour and material palette flows throughout the home, prevailing through the Ming green marble fan tiles in the homes bathrooms, and again through much of Pompei’s furnishing and interior design details. The open-plan kitchen, living, dining area is composed through the scalloped kitchen bench which is use from each space. Shaped to allow free passage through the home, it avoids the constricting feel of the original terrace house and creates as much space as possible.

A driving factor behind the client choosing the home was its unusually large backyard so close to the city, perfect for a young family to enjoy. However, the existing backyard was very space inefficient, occupied by curved terraced garden beds that limited usable space. Carter Williamson Architects freed up this space by splitting the garden into three distinct parts, a patio for outdoor dining, and equal parts lawn and pool to create the client’s ideal backyard for their needs.

When approaching a project such as Pompei, an option is to knockdown and rebuild. In the spirit of creating sustainable architecture, Carter Williamson Architects adopted the concept of adaptive reuse, maintaining the bones of the home and modernising it. Not only does this create less environmental strain by drawing a smaller amount of materials, it allowed Pompei to continue to tell its unique story.