Mountford Road | Shane Marsh Architects

A traditional Queenslander Typology restricted the nature of a contemporary family home. We wanted to minimise the impact of any extension on the grandeur of the original house. The traditional undercroft of a home in the sub-tropical environment of the southeast has traditionally been the coolest part of the home. Families would gather under these houses in the heat of the day. At the same time, kids would run between the undercroft and the garden. The undercroft of traditional Queenslanders has a child-like memory for people who grew up in these typical homes.

We wanted to give the same feeling of undercroft and coolness to the built form of the home. So we injected a new main living space that remains cool in the summer and combined this with large door openings to transition to the secluded gardens of the home. We opted for a darker ceiling to give that sense of undercroft balanced with strong, heavy, light materials like concrete and marble the lighten the space.