Longmore House

The street presents as it always has: painted brickwork, original window joinery, a picket fence and a tessellated tile path to the verandah. That frontage was retained and restored rather than replaced, and the decorative plasterwork behind it - ceiling roses, cornice runs, the proportions of the front rooms - was kept and made good.

Behind it, the house is new. A contemporary addition wrapped in white perforated screening - what architects Tecture call a "jewel box" - projects out beyond the ground floor, its form kept graceful against the tight streetscape around it. The screening filters light into the addition while giving it privacy, opening the ground floor to the garden and bringing light deep into a plan that previously had none. The junction between the two is the detail the whole project turns on.

The extension could have been larger, but the ornate living room ceiling was kept intact rather than sacrificed for extra floor area - a deliberate trade-off in favour of the existing fabric. In the kitchen, a curved bulkhead conceals the rangehood and softens the room's scale, with porcelain benchtops set against a Volakis stone apron on the island. The ensuite carries tonal references back to the home's original fireplaces.