The challenge in renovating can sometimes present in the form of latent conditions; unknown, unexpected and often challenging elements of an existing structure that go unnoticed until walls, ceilings and floors begin to be pulled away.
The owners of Carlton House in Melbourne’s Carlton bought the home seventeen years ago and the possibility of problematic existing conditions made their eventual need to re-model it overwhelming. The owners described the existing house as “cramped and dark,” and their brief to Tom Robertson, director of Tom Robertson Architects, was to create “space for [our] two dogs, light for us, and a house that did what we wanted it to.” On a site landlocked by Victorian terraces, drawing light into the rear east-facing elevation of the house became fundamental to the way the new works were planned.