When Jorge Hrdina was asked to renovate a Federation-style house in Neutral Bay he knew it was special: it was the childhood home and birthplace of one of the nation's most important painters, Grace Cossington Smith. She was the nation's first female modernist painter, and publicly pushed her belief in Australia as a modern, forward-looking country at a time when women had no vote. It was important, Hrdina says, that any renovation embrace this.
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The brief
The client wanted to retain and protect the 120-year-old sandstone home as a beautiful heritage building, but adapt it to modern-day living and improve its connection with its park-like environment.
The challenge
As with any project involving a significant heritage building, the big challenge was keeping the building's fabric while modernising it. The Queen Anne home had been built about 1891, with Cossington Smith born not long after.
"As well as dealing with the usual site and other issues, Grace's history here and as a painter, and the house's antiquity, were all important considerations," Hrdina says.
The site and house's orientation were tricky. Located at the back of an east-west running block, the house faced east and was overshadowed to the west by multi-storey residences and a cliff. A large two-storey house to the north blocked ventilation and sunlight. It was dark internally and bastardised during numerous unsympathetic renovations.
The solution
Hrdina wanted the new work to "embrace the modern and be clearly differentiated", taking cues from Cossington Smith's cubist influences, with the original house sensitively retained and restored and the inappropriate 1980s additions removed.
The original one-storey ''Cossington'' would contain formal public entertaining areas, with grand spaces and high ceilings. This would contrast with the new light two-storey timber-and-glass cubist-inspired addition at the back.
In the old house, internal walls were preserved along with original detailing. Openings were discreetly increased by 50 per cent, with new french doors undetectable from the old, and new north-facing skylights and windows resulting in seamless, fluid, light-filled spaces.
Existing sparrow-pecked sandstone walls around the old servant's quarters to the back were retained as blades to define and support the new extension. A casual living space and main bedroom plus bathroom are downstairs, three bathrooms and bath upstairs.
Floor-to-ceiling frameless glazing has been used to the north, south and east to preserve the view of heritage stone walls from inside and out.
Importantly, an old above-ground garage was replaced with a new excavated one, allowing the house's original grassed curtilage to be restored. The overall effect is of a house sitting comfortably in its landscape, respecting its past while embracing its future.
Trisha Croaker is a juror for the 2014 NSW Architecture Awards. Cossington House is a finalist in the awards. To view all entrants see nswawards.architecture.com.au.
Sustainability tips
The house is planned according to the principles of passive solar design. The living spaces and bedrooms in the new addition are located to the north and the bathrooms to the south.
The extension, built in reverse brick veneer, is set back from the north boundary to maximise natural light and allow for solar heating to the stone floors in the winter months, an efficient in-slab heating system also aids this when required.
The upstairs bedrooms facing north are well shaded by the gutter projection in the summer months and ceiling fans in these rooms aid natural ventilation.
The sandstone walls in the extension have been rebuilt with the stone reused from the original walls and renewable materials such as recycled timber have been used where possible.
