Gardeners House by Splinter Society

This Brunswick remodel creates a dialogue between the contrasting styles of the existing structure and its starkly modern additions, while a lush ornamental garden takes centrestage.

Aptly named Gardener’s House, this leafy property contained a period structure that required updating to fit with the needs of modern life. In designing the remodel, architecture and interior design studio Splinter Society took the approach of celebrating the spoils of the homeowner’s green thumb by recessing the renovated home into the gardens through both layout and colour choices. For the original masonry structure at the front of the home, this was achieved through the use of a terracotta paint, which speaks to the home’s heritage and also helps to merge with the language of a neighbouring brick property.

Orchids and ferns grow in the courtyard between old and new, allowing light to flood the new rooms and framing these spaces in greenery.

To the rear, where the modern addition sits, there is a sense of the garden having entered the home, with vines hanging across a large pergola on the back deck and large gridded windows allowing for verdant vistas from all areas of the new living room. As the plants winding across the pergola grow and spread, they will also provide shade for the spaces within.

Plants also enter where the existing structure meets with the addition. Here, a previous concrete verandah has been demolished to provide for the modern living, dining and kitchen space, leaving behind some purposefully visible relics. Orchids and ferns grow in the courtyard between old and new, allowing light to flood the new rooms and framing these spaces in greenery. The original brick is left exposed in the connecting space, adding texture to the clean lines of the adjacent dining area.

The tiled kitchen splashback provides a sparkle against the black rear wall and matching kitchen island, which adjoins a set of sleek steel shelves.

In the addition, dark colours allow the gardens to take precedence. The tiled kitchen splashback provides a sparkle against the black rear wall and matching kitchen island, which adjoins a set of sleek steel shelves. This cool, contemporary look is softened by a timber benchtop and long dining table, while designer lounge furniture in the adjoining living room adds to the modern style of this part of the home.

Outside, raw cement sheet cladding assimilates with the original masonry, albeit in a more contemporary tone. Similarly, the proportions of the addition are designed to match those of the original building. The dominant and homogenous factor for both, though, is that abundant garden, which spills over and across the architecture in so many glorious ways.

Architecture and interior design by Splinter Society. Build by Buildtech.