Au Yeung House in Sydney by Tribe Studio

There’s more than a touch of quirky in the renovation of this 1930’s brick suburban Sydney home. The architects at Tribe Studio have taken what is ostensibly a fairly mundane piece of suburban architecture and breathed life into it. They will tell you otherwise of course. They already thought the original house held whimsical elements. The sunburst brick detail over the front door for example or the herringbone brick pattern in the gables. They already sensed the slightly left of centre character this house presented.

“The charm and singularity of the original house determined many aspects of the redesign. While it was not ‘high architecture’, the house was beautifully built, and whimsically, even eccentrically, detailed – fancy bricks, a touch of Tudor, and a bit of California Bungalow,” said the architects.

Adding a box extension to the rear of the house, it is more than just a simple cuboid shape. There’s the same layering of quirkiness. The kitchen for example is hidden behind dove grey timber panelled doors, reminiscent of barn style doors, the pale grey soft against the concrete floors. The same grey is found in the older part of the house. The two tone grey and white wardrobes in the bedroom a clever and delightful surprise element. The same grey is picked up on the walls of the bedroom and highlighted again by the crisp white shelving above the bed.

Leading to the extension there’s a hallway, bright, white and inviting, it houses the open tread oak stair case with it’s draped rope balustrade. There’s a lightness and a grace to this transitional space that takes you from the old part of the house into the new.

See more projects from Tribe Studio on Yellowtrace here.

Then there’s the lovely use of glass that’s continued into the extension mirroring the glass used in the main house. The box living room is glazed, framed by black steel segments, giving the appearance of delicately supporting the heavy brickwork above. Here in the rear elevation of the house we see the same brick pattern of the sunburst arch designed into the brick facade of the second floor. It’s a heavy choice of material to use above the light steel frame work below; a sort of juxtaposition in strength. Black steel, boxed out windows, miniature cubes if you will, project cheekily from the façade. Whimsy game strong. Check.

“Materiality is preserved – a celebration of decorative brickwork, lichen-covered roof tiles.We honoured the heritage fabric of this house by using a level of quality and detailing in the new back garden elevation. The brick sunburst on the front appears in the new rear elevation, lead light windows to the front morph into steel framed windows at the rear. It is a kind of material palette call and response between the public and private faces of the building,” noted the architects.

The use of colour is extensive, as all things whimsical tend to be. There’s the bold, royal blue applied in the living room of the original house. Then there’s the soft salmon pinks in the bathroom and bedroom and the arresting sea blue in the main bathroom. It is all full of life and energy.

“We used a pale-toned 30s colour palette throughout the house, in materials and paint finishes, referring to the house’s Arts and Crafts origins,” said the architects.

There is sophistication to the architecture and finishes in the new part of the dwelling that feels more grown up than the strong use of colour applied in the main house. But it all manages to hang together crisply. It’s a charming blend of unpredictability teamed with an unerring judgement in colour application and consummate style.

See more projects from Tribe Studio on Yellowtrace here.