Italianate House

by Renato D'Ettorre Architects

The Italianate House by Renato D’Ettorre Architects is a large addition and alterations project with 4 main components – the Italianate Terrace House for the family, the historic sandstone stables as guest quarters, the new concrete carport with landscaped roof terrace along with the gardens and the swimming pool.

The design generates a sense of wonder and awe both inside and out encouraging the young growing family to explore and enjoy the various spaces with multiple sensory experiences and emotions. These are spaces of silence and contemplation, through calming and restrained aesthetics that will serve the young family well into the 21^st Century.

The main challenge faced by Renato D’Ettorre and his team was to convert the 1860’s building and the 1990’s office fit-out of grandiose style, into a contemporary family home for my clients. The underlying key design objective of the project was to understand the sense and feeling of the place, its history and the cultural value of the original architecture. The studio carefully considered and reinterpreted in a contemporary language, the essential and historical character of the site in order to celebrate, to uphold and revive its history.  They wanted to avoid tendencies for preconceived ideas and solutions which in turn is formulaic in design approach and keep the new design elements simple, so that they avoided complications, resulting in generating pure interiors.

The Italianate House is a dialogue between the structure and the rich context of the site, characterised as rustic charm, with the new work, having a relationship between the warmth of the old materials and the simplicity of the modern. The final outcome of the conversion presents the benefits of the measures undertaken in preserving and reinterpreting history whilst accommodating modern life without sacrificing either objective.

The impressive engineered double height brick vault ceiling to the restructured rear wing seemed an appropriate element for the Italianate style of the house.  This brings to modern design such elements of historical grandeur that gave rise to the great architecture of early civilisations bestowing the notion – the arch that never sleeps.

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