A heritage terrace rediscovered, room by room.
The family had lived in their 1860s Launceston brick terrace for a decade. The house was beautiful - asymmetrical facade, arched windows, generous ceilings - but it had stopped working for them. A previous lean-to addition at the rear had made the back of the house dark and cut off from the garden. The traditional Georgian layout of cellular rooms no longer suited a young, growing family. They came to us wanting to open the house up to light and life, without losing what made it special.
One idea, carried through the whole house.
We approached the project as a single, coherent architectural idea rather than a series of separate decisions. The geometry of the original building - its proportions, the rhythm of its arched windows, its symmetry - became the starting point for everything new. The previous lean-to was reworked into a considered addition that continues the logic of the original rather than contradicting it.
A new arched opening echoes the heritage windows of the facade, drawing the eye through the house and pulling the north light deep into the plan. From the street, the addition reads as a natural extension of what was always there. Inside, the connection between old and new is easy and unhurried you move through the house without noticing where one ends and the other begins.
The right materials. Nothing more, nothing less.
Every material choice was made with longevity and care in mind. Bricks are locally sourced and carbon-neutral. Structural elements are predominantly sustainably managed timber, reducing the reliance on carbon-heavy steel wherever the design allowed. Flooring, joinery veneers and plywood were selected for their warmth, durability and low embodied carbon - things that sit comfortably alongside the original craftsmanship of an 1860s home, and that will age just as well.
“We had lived in this beautiful 1860s terrace house for a decade, but the needs of our young family had changed. We had never renovated before, but we conveyed our vision to Todd at Cumulus, and the team was able to execute what we’d dreamt of even beyond our expectations. The transformation of the space is remarkable - it’s open, beautiful and functional, and makes spending time at home with our young family and friends more relaxed and enjoyable.”
Finding the most considered response within a given budget and context is something we bring to every project. Constraint, for us, is a design tool. The result here is a house that feels generous and grounded, and one that earns its place amongst the heritage buildings it calls neighbours.
