Sensitive and Restrained – Denbigh Road House by Clare Cousins Architects

A sensitive and retrained extension, Denbigh Road House is a study of the contemporary residential condition, set within an enviably generous site. Clare Cousins Architects brings a refinement and resolute timelessness in the approach to creating a robust family home.

Denbigh Road House is located in Armadale, in Melbourne’s inner south-east. Extending the home’s original bones, the new works inject a built and metaphysical extension to the home’s life. Together with landscape design by Eckersley’s Garden Architecture, Clare Cousins expresses a confident refinement, combining the existing home and a contemporary extension that actively engages with the site and its many bountiful mature trees. Heritage elements are celebrated, and a sense of its formality is carried through into the new with a new internal configuration and an open and connected active living space. Dotted throughout are more intimate areas for retreat, offering a calming place of repose for the family. With the design primarily driven by a connection to its immersive garden, the extension sits deep into the site due to large setbacks that allowed a more contemporary formality to emerge. The sharp lines and deep voids of the new match the old in rhythm, formality and materiality. Clare Cousins has successfully extended the life of Denbigh Road House through a respectful and contextual approach, proposing a home of enduring and timeless moments.