Expanded Legacy – Glenmore Residence by Pohio Adams Architects
Sited on a corner allotment, Glenmore Residence draws from the grandeur of its past, seeing the Victorian-era home reconfigured into a purposed and elevated dwelling. Pohio Adams Architects overlays a restrained approach together with an expanding methodology to bring deliberate connections between the inside and out while binding past and present.
As the bookend to a line of similar era Victorian homes, Glenmore Residence nestles into Sydney’s Paddington, while its interior is reworked as an expression of both its owners and the passing of time. With an adjoining neighbour to one side and open to the other, the terrace home needed both to bring in additional natural light and create a better connection to the surrounds. As both a renovation and extension effort, the resulting home brings together a series of considered gestures that meaningfully carry the ideas of craft and detail of the original into the new. Through the expansion, Pohio Adams Architects proposes a more open floor plan that allows for optimised flow and increased visual connections internally and beyond.
Originally built in the 1890s, Glenmore Residence carries with it many of the reminders of its time. In correcting the formal separation and limited openings, the main intervention occurs at ground level, to the rear. A newly formed living, dining and kitchen space convenes as one generous volume. In connecting the inside to the rear courtyard space, large steel framed glass doors and windows stretch full height. Opening through a bi-fold mechanism, the existing wall is replaced by a moveable glass screen that peels away to dissolve the existing threshold, where a levelled floor plan extends the space outward.
Although already oriented toward the north along its length and opening to the east and west at either end, the access to natural light needed to be optimised. Built by Superior Kitchens, the insertions within the space elongate the spaces, decluttering and overlaying a sense of calm. By emphasising the linear nature of the home, a gallery feel is created, allowing the owners and their creative backgrounds to curate their own displays. From a muted base of warm and complementary base tones, colour is injected with deliberation, enriching certain areas and creating a sense of hierarchy amongst the spaces as a result.
Through a balancing between drama and calmness, Glenmore Residence comes together as a capture of those that enviably reside there. Pohio Adams Architects has crafted a unique interpretation that fuses heritage and a contemporary sensibility, creating a statement home in the process.
