Hortense.

This house called Hortense started as a 1930’s Spanish Mission Cottage with a deep west-facing backyard and a thin lean-to separating the house from the yard, and has been brought to life with it’s new garden-focussed addition. The brief called for four key changes: 1) Flow between living and backyard, 2) flexible space for growing family, 3) fix storage issues and 4) futureproof home from sustainability perspective.

Jon’s solution aimed to minimise the footprint of the house by anchoring the living space around a central kitchen (under the main roof) with the new addition opening up to the north to maximise the passive solar gain, while connecting to the yard via a shaded outdoor dining space. New wet areas in the addition include a mud room/ laundry and second bathroom, and the original bathroom gets an upgrade too. The new living and dining space means the original rooms can be repurposed into second living spaces or extra bedrooms as the need arises.