Our Little Big House featured in The Design Files.

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We love our Garden House project and are so happy to see it featured on The Design Files.

“Maike Design are a Melbourne design studio who’ve gained a reputation for their clever approach to heritage home renovations, creating bright and functional spaces completely tailored to each individual site.

Their latest project, Garden House, showcases this very approach, comprising a sympathetic renovation of a brick California bungalow, alongside a new north-facing pavilion. The original house has been reworked to create calm and enclosed private spaces, while the pavilion is as much a part of the garden as it is the house.

Garden House is a bright and breezy transformation of a previously dark and inward facing brick bungalow in Malvern East, Victoria, by Maike Design, and overseen by Bancroft and Malone Architects.

The brief provided was to accommodate the growing family’s needs, including the provision of spaces for working from home at odd hours.

‘It was a clean and neat little house, but it needed repairs, and it didn’t functionally meet any of the client’s requirements,’ says Mairead Murphy, director of Maike Design, of the house pre-renovation.

‘The two almost teen girls were sharing a room (which was definitely starting to wear thin!), the house had almost no storage, it was very cold and damp. and gave next to no connection to the enormous backyard.’

In response, the designers replanned the existing house to feature quiet spaces catering to the ‘inwards facing parts of life’ (three bedrooms, a bathroom, en suite, laundry and lounge), capitalising on the original building’s inherent solidity and calm.

‘We focused on how the existing spaces could be replanned, using just a few deliberate and considered new openings and small alterations,’ says Mairead.

The most significant update was the opening of the original house rear to the garden designed by Amanda Oliver Gardens, achieved by demolishing the pantry, laundry, and storeroom.

An adjoining extension was meanwhile added, turning 90 degrees to the original house towards the northern sunlight. Spaces are lined up along the length of a nine-metre long glazed wall, directly connecting each room to the garden.

‘The design has been detailed to distort the line where the house ends and the garden begins,’ says Mairead. ‘The subtle qualities of the materials shift and change as the light changes outside, just like the garden does.’” 

See it here.

Thrilled to see Next Door House 2 featured on The Design Files.

“Interior Designer Mairead Murphy is passionate about saving Melbourne’s post-war weatherboard homes, recognising them as an important part of the city’s historic fabric.

The director of Maike Design first bought one of these houses in Brunswick East in 2014, going on to complete a self-designed full renovation, within the original footprint.

When a similar house came up for sale next door, Mairead and her partner embarked on another renovation – only this time it wasn’t so easy! Despite several unforeseen issues, the designer successfully reworked this second home quickly and efficiently. It’s now a clever, compact home for her family of four, with some lovely new neighbours next door!

Director of Maike Design Mairead Murphy recognises post-war ‘austerity houses’ as an unappreciated element of Melbourne’s architectural history. ‘These post-war houses are modest and small, but they were the backdrop to a period of such optimism and change in Melbourne’s history,’ she says. ‘I think if you understand their historical context it is hard not to see their charm.’

Keen to retain this history, the designer and her partner bought a 1940s Brunswick East home in 2014, which they slowly renovated over several years.

When the very dilapidated house next door came up for sale, the couple decided to save another post-war weatherboard from likely demolition. ‘The house was built at the same time as ours, was around the same floor area, and had many of the same issues,’ recalls Mairead. ‘It was obviously rundown, but having fixed up one, we figured we roughly knew what we were in for. We had been putting money aside to finish our home and calculated that we had just enough for the deposit and a nice, but modest renovation.’

Unfortunately, this second renovation ended up being far less straightforward. Mairead describes the condition of the house as ‘honestly terrible’, with every update uncovering more issues than initially expected. For example, although both houses were clad in vinyl weatherboards, the first house has well preserved timber underneath. ‘In house two there were just large sections of wall with no weatherboards at all!’ Mairead says. ‘House one we re-stumped and re-levelled, lifting it around 15cm in sections. In house two, there weren’t even any proper footings, just shallow trenches filled with concrete and old pieces of plumbing pipe, so we lifted the back of it 70cm!’” 

See it here.