St Vincents Place Residence in Melbourne by B.E Architecture.

It’s not that we are unfamiliar with the concept of pulling down a building and keeping the token gesture of the façade. However, when it’s literally all you’ve got left, it’s a slightly different matter. Previously home to nuns, squatters and former landowners, there wasn’t much left of this Victorian Dame by the time Melbourne-based practice B.E Architecture, got their hands on it. Their job was to use architectural reconstruction surgery to bring back the elements that spoke to the history of the era, to retain her Victorian personality so to speak, but also to use the opportunity for a bit of a nip and tuck.

250 millimetres of brickwork on the northern façade was the sum total of what they had left to work with. Everything else went in new, whether you can tell it or not. And that’s where clever architects have their moment, allowing the Dame to acknowledge her past while respectfully taking her hand and leading her into the present.

Everything about the restoration of this home speaks to thoughtful attribution and design. There is no doubt the front section of the house is classically approached, but with little moments of contemporary injection. The white marble wall adds a modern sophistication to the fireplace in the living room. And the green onyx feature wall, mirroring the approach from the living room, adds depth to the bedroom. The dramatic circular steel lighting ring in the lounge… moments that are subtle but powerful.

Perhaps because they started from scratch, there is a sense of intimate connectedness between the old house at the front and the black-framed addition at the rear. It is paradoxically clearly an extension, but it seems to hum in rhythm with the original. Perhaps it’s the palate and the textures employed. The bluestone frontage marries thoughtfully with the external façade of ridged concrete panels in the rear. The terrazzo-style floor of the rear kitchen, masculine and robust, is the perfect partner to the more ornate finishes from the past.

There are plenty of moments of gorgeousness throughout. The simple oak staircase, with its licoricey ribbon handrail, simply drawing the eye up and around to the second floor. The pop of yellow filtering through the stain glass front door like a hundred daisy petals thrown in the air, implausibly suspended, delicately illuminated by the sun.

The deep mysterious cave-like expanse of the pool is more like an underground swimming lagoon. Mysterious, masculine and impossibly beautiful with its moody stone-grey walls and ceilings, it forms the perfect backdrop for the translucent aqua water shimmering in the semi-darkness.

The reclamation and addition to this residence is simplicity personified, down to the paired back Japanese inspired washrooms, simple stone walls and timber stools. Like all simplicity, it is deceptively layered to perfection. Even the artwork, an eclectic curation, interplays with the architectural elements, bringing you back to the moment or asking questions of you. The artworks in with the architecture rather than feel like a piecemeal random addition. The two-story-high quote, ‘Heaven Is A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens’, illuminates the simple courtyard, acting as a reminder that one day the current owners won’t be walking these beautifully articulated halls and that instead, someone else will see this great Dame into the next incarnation.

See more projects by B.E. Architecture on Yellowtrace here.