Malvern Garden House by Taylor Knights Architects

Set within a terraced garden, a new pavilion adjoins a 1930s home in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Malvern. Glazed on two sides and supporting a loose rooftop garden that spills over its edges, the pavilion exemplifies Taylor Knights Architects’ approach to the landscape as the element of connection that binds old and new.

The project consists of three key elements – the original home, the new addition, and the landscape, which was created with Ben Scott Garden Design. Though generous in size, like most heritage homes the existing house was fundamentally focused inward. The primary aim of the new work was not to substantially extend the building’s footprint per se but rather to orient its focus outward to create a sense of connection to the surrounding garden and between spaces within the home.

“One of the things we noticed when we first visited the site was the spectacular potential of the garden,” recall Peter Knights and James Taylor, co-founders and directors of Taylor Knights Architects. The combination of the north-facing site, steep terraces and mature trees, including an oak over a century old, meant that “you felt like you were an hour out of Melbourne even though you’re actually in the heart of the city. We knew that connecting the landscape to the house was a significant opportunity that would inform the design,” says Peter.

The new pavilion, which houses the kitchen and dining space, was key to instilling this relationship. Situated on the highest terrace to the rear of the existing house, the pavilion itself was conceived as another terrace, with the rooftop garden above emphasising the connection between the built form and the natural environment. Glazed on two sides and naturally lit by a sculptural triangular skylight that penetrates through the green roof, the pavilion becomes almost an outdoor room. James explains that it was conceived of as the “command centre” of the home. This applies not only functionally, in its role as the primary shared space in which the family gathers, but also in the fact that, though the pavilion is relatively modest in size, its influence reverberates throughout the entire home.

Acting as an exemplar for a manner of living that is deeply engaged with the landscape, the pavilion becomes the point of reference that informs the renovation of the existing home. While the house was not significantly re-planned, a few key moves that take cues from the pavilion’s immersion in the landscape introduce a heightened sense of relationality into the previously insular house. From the entrance hall, with its direct line of sight into the new pavilion is established, there is an immediate sense that the pavilion is the destination at which the entire house converges.

The placement of new apertures in the lounge and adjacent reading room, which functions as the children’s play area, emphasise both spaces’ relationship with the garden and the pavilion. These windows take advantage of the elevated position of these rooms to maximise views across the site and to create visual links back to kitchen-dining space. “We opened up the whole north face of the lounge,” explains James, “that glazing is quite expansive and frames the view of the landscape to the north.” Meanwhile, in the reading room, a new bay window is pushed out of the wall to an angle. Peter describes how the angled window “looks back onto the garden. Although you’re sitting internally, the windows push you out into the garden.”

The angled window in the reading room, as an overtly new element within the original house, recalls a similarly angled window and corresponding seat in the pavilion. By picking up this cue and interpreting it into the old, a sense of continuity emerges. The fact that the pavilion is glazed on two sides combined with the placement of these two windows at opposite angles enhances the visual link between the kitchen-dining space in the pavilion and the otherwise separate reading room. “The way the window [in the reading room] is angled allows people in other parts of the house to still have a visual connection with each other, so if you’re in the kitchen you can see if someone is in the reading room,” explains James. “Part of what we wanted to create in the ‘command centre’ is a connection not only with the garden but back into the existing house.”

This aim is also evident in the other, more subtle ways in which the original home was opened and made more permeable. A timber screen allows light and air to filter from the lounge into the hallway behind. This simple yet effective manoeuvre maintains the integrity of the original plan while creating a greater sense of connection between zones. Meanwhile, a small courtyard inserted between the master suite, which is located in the original building, and the new pavilion creates a link between these private spaces and the landscape that was previously missing.

The interplay between the strong bones and formality of the old house and the open, connected nature of the new is expressed in the pavilion through the contrast between the expanses of glazing and the concrete structure. The impression of the timber formwork that is visible in the concrete ceiling (which echoes the timber ceiling in the lounge) emphasises the tactile, rough materiality of the concrete. Similarly, the deep reveals offered by the concrete columns further emphasise the relationship between the open expanses of glass and the mass of the concrete. Yet the angled edge creates a more refined effect that confounds expectations of the robust nature of the material. This Scarpa-esque stepped concrete detail, which also evokes the brick corbelling on the front façade of the original home, James explains, “allowed us to softly open corners up. We love the play on light and shadow which is created by those stepped concrete forms.”

Though details such as these, the relationship between the new and the old is deepened. While the juxtaposition of the original house with the modernist new pavilion is undeniable, in essence, the Malvern Garden House is defined not by contrast but by connection. From the largest of interventions to the smallest of nuances, the home is informed at every turn by the imperative to interact with the garden.