An Architect’s Own House with a Kitchen at Its Heart (House Tour)

Located in South Yarra on a site that opens onto a laneway, this is an architect’s own house with plenty of natural light and a clever use of space. The project by Lande Architects involved renovating a single-fronted Victorian house, and some motifs from the original house are echoed in the design, such as the curved face of the kitchen island and oval skylight above the bath. A main concern in the redesign was to bring more light into the architect’s own house and to open it up to the laneway, which is rich in planting and greenery. This was achieved through a double-height void in the living space, the light from which is borrowed by many areas of the house, including the upstairs master bedroom. The open-plan living space then steps down onto a courtyard with gates that can be swung open to the laneway. Aa an architect’s own house, spaces flow into one another effortlessly and the furniture seems at one with the architecture. With the kitchen at the heart of the home, its design needed to be free of