Barton-Taylor Residence

Highgate, Western Australia

Location + Imagination = Renovation. A single-storey worker’s cottage becomes a spacious inner-city home, with a private view of the city skyline.


Completed: 2006

Size: 280m/sq

Awards: RAIA WA Chapter Architecture Awards 2007, Archicentre Renovation - Architecture Award

Filters: Additions & Alterations / Awards


The owners of this property saw huge potential in their Highgate worker’s cottage. With a fantastic location and a little imagination, we created a two-storey, open plan design which brought a contemporary, urban feel to the traditional home.
Our plan essentially grafted a two-storey ‘box’ onto the existing building. We maintained the traditional verandah facade and then opened out the back of the property, creating the indoor/outdoor feel the owners were looking for. On the ground level, polished wooden floors step up to the decking of the outside entertaining area. A combination of urban materials with simple finishes – weathering steel gates and fencing, rendered painted brickwork, off-form concrete walls and grey concrete floors – gives the renovation a raw, urban feel, reflecting the edgy character of Highgate. Upstairs, the newly elevated living area overlooks the garden and turns tramadol mail order uk its face to the sky. And from the master bedroom, a ‘Ned Kelly’ slit window spies on the city skyline from the level of the bed, through a black frame of stained timber.