After 30 years in the Melbourne suburb where she’d raised her three daughters, Fleur Glenn was itching for a change. Her neighborhood, a leafy area called Clifton Hill, had much to offer—close friends, a nearby park, and, when the weather was good, a manageable walk to her job at a busy medical clinic. But her four-bedroom house was more than she needed or wanted. The question was where to go.

After weighing her options, Fleur found the answer hiding in plain sight. A one-bedroom bungalow, which she’d informally rented out over the years, sat at the other end of her rectangular lot. Somewhat worn, it was ripe for renovating. She had already met a potential collaborator: architect Murray Barker, a friend of her daughter Hazel’s. “I’d seen a studio he’d designed and the renovation of his own tiny bungalow, as well as photos of a house he’d done for a friend in Bali,” Fleur explains. “Murray is quiet-spoken and sensitive, the kind of person who really listens, and I knew he was exactly right for me.”

Barker had worked at NMBW Architecture Studio in Melbourne and Adjaye Associates in London and Berlin before returning to Australia in 2013 to launch a solo practice. He looked at the images Fleur had collected and considered her wish list for the bungalow, which was nestled beneath eucalyptus trees and a large elm. “She wanted an upstairs bedroom, a roof deck, and a place to write and read that were all connected,” Barker says. “She was happy for the spaces to be modest, but the house needed to accommodate visiting guests or family.”

Built in the 1980s, the bungalow was not architecturally significant, so Barker proposed a new tack: He suggested that tearing down and rebuilding would give Fleur the light and comfort she sought without losing the connection to the garden that the bungalow enjoyed. Persuaded by the plan, Fleur subdivided her property and sold the family house.

The challenge for Barker was siting the new structure—“The mature trees really reduced the space in which to build,” he says—and making sure it “made sense” in the context of the neighborhood’s homes, largely built in the Federation style, which has been called Australia’s answer to Edwardian and Queen Anne architecture. After consulting with an arborist and a structural engineer to ensure that the building’s footings would accommodate existing root systems as well as future growth, he responded with a 1,180-square-foot, two-story house that slightly expands the original footprint. “Although we set up a general layout and circulation sequence early on, the location of the trees meant that the plan became quite irregular on both levels, with tricky angles,” he explains.

Working with local builder Sanctum Homes, Barker embraced the constraints, creating a house that reveals something unexpected at every turn. The main street facade is clad in white clapboard and corrugated metal—which also makes an appearance on the roof—while the shady southern facade is sheathed in black-stained timber and black cement board. In keeping with the neighborhood’s period cottages, white gables mark the entrance courtyard.

The play of angles and materials continues inside, where on the ground floor the living/dining area and the kitchen both open to views of the garden. Ceiling and wall treatments alternate between silvertop ash paneling and crisp white plasterboard, while natural light pours in through glass doors, windows, and polycarbonate panels. In contrast to the dark green hall that leads to the downstairs guest bedroom and bathroom, the narrow stair to the second floor is light and bright. “I wanted the journey to Fleur’s bedroom to feel quite different from the rest of the house,” Barker says. “There are views of the trees and sky, including a round window that frames the beautiful dark bark of one of the eucalyptus trees.”

At the top of the stair is a paneled study with a pitched ceiling and a large sliding door that can open to Fleur’s bedroom or close when her grandchildren visit. “I said I wanted a tree house, and up in my study I feel like I’m sitting among the branches,” says Fleur. “Birds sit and stare at me through the windows, almost close enough to touch. And I love my upstairs bathroom, with its skylight perfectly placed so that I can lie in the bath and watch the clouds blow by.”

Now that the house is complete, there are visits from family, boisterous meals in the garden, and wine on the upstairs deck, where Fleur and her friends watch the fruit bats fly west at dusk.

“I chose not to get air conditioning, but the house has been great throughout our hot Melbourne summer as it’s well insulated and the windows are double-glazed,” she says. “I’ve even slept with my doors open to the upstairs deck. I’m only a tiny bit nervous that a possum may venture in during the night, but it hasn’t happened.”

Related Reading: A Cramped Bungalow Is Reborn as an Eco-Minded Abode For Two Gardeners

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Murray Barker / @murraybarker

General contracting: Sanctum Homes

Structural engineering: Hive Engineering

Landscape design: Bush Projects

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