Andrew Burges Architects has made a virtue of modesty with an addition to a 1930s house on Sydney’s North Shore. The simple gesture of tucking a roof behind a roof establishes the geometry for a pair of monastical wells that funnel daylight into the space. This simplicity, though, belies painstakingly refined detail. Read more…

View gallery Image: Alicia Taylor

Behind an unassuming street frontage in Melbourne’s South Yarra lies a hidden gem of mid-century Australian modernism – a besser brick house that is every bit as understated and self-effacing as its architect, Neil Clerehan. Philip Goad reviews this “self-portrait” that Clerehan has called home for more than five decades. Read more…

View gallery Image: Christopher Frederick Jones

An ode to the humble brick, this addition to a worker’s cottage by Cox Rayner Architects and Twofold Studio both celebrates and transcends its inner suburban site. Andrew Mackenzie pays a visit, to find a house that carefully balances privacy with a sense of spaciousness, despite the duress of a tight site and tyrannical planning regime. Read more…

View gallery Image: Peter Bennetts

John Wardle Architects channels Ballarat’s love affair with its gardens, conservatories and, in particular, its hedges into a finely crafted new house. Establishing a direct connection with the “civic heart” of Ballarat and its community, the building is composed as a series of pavilions, courtyards and gardens, slung off an anchoring spine. Read more…

View gallery Image: Brett Boardman

A new terrace house in Sydney by Matthew Pullinger Architect seriously engages with the street and community life. Internally, its planning deliberately breaks convention with a courtyard orientated to the shady south rather than the light- and heat-seeking north. Shaun Carter learns how this unusual strategy is perfect for Sydney’s climes. Read more…