We embraced its ornamental Spanish features – arches joined by barley-twist column, terracotta, stucco, curves, fortress-like proportions – to apply an equally handcrafted quality indoors.
Clay and ochre tones cast an idyllic glow, playing off the dirty pink hue of the original house, with speckled terrazzo, timber, terracotta and rosy travertine throughout. Anchored in natural earthy hues, this palette holds the client’s existing art warmly.
Every element has been considered as a fun sensory opportunity, from custom timber handles to the richness of handmade finishes.
Artfully concealing appliances and storage in the kitchen, powder pink cabinets are punctuated by expertly shaped, sliced and splayed timber, forming irresistibly grabbable handles that feel like “kisses from the house”.
Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the East Kulin Nations
Malvern, VIC
Photography by Martina Gemmola
Styling by Bea Lambos
Built by Clear Form
Set on Bunurong Country, Clique sees a 1940s clinker brick duplex bloom with colour, through a concise new extension and creative remap. Loving sentiment for retro Australiana and family history are important narratives, embedded throughout.
From the once-overlooked front yard reimagined as a street-facing social garden, a rosy concrete pathway leads to a bold orange front door, stamped with the couple’s initials.
Inside, a kaleidoscope of hues awaits. An efficient corridor in eucalyptus green containing European laundry and study nook opens into a kitchen of variegated rouge marble, with a deep green marble island segueing into a tangerine breakfast bar. Opposite this, a double-height gallery wall houses the client’s eclectic array of art.
Terrazzo tiles from a previous project and a preserved timber subfloor contribute to sustainability, balancing luxury and frugality. Precious bricks reclaimed from the client’s grandfather’s factory form an ornate, geometric waterfall. Natural light pours in through high windows and large sliding doors, connecting the interior with the small courtyard, effortlessly transitioning to al fresco living.
Clique proves that small homes can pop with personality, abundance and joy!
Bunurong Country
St Kilda East, VIC
Photography by Martina Gemmola
Styling by Bea Lambos
Built by Sociable Weaver
Parallel Play is a joyful union of all generations enjoying activities side-by-side within our lush rewilded garden oasis. The generosity of this urban bushscape is a central feature for the six intimate & distinctive communities that will call this place home.
A beautiful collaboration between WOWOWA and DKO Architects explore a design vision celebrating of diversity, curiosity, character and connection. DKO and WOWOWA have collaborated as a true partnership to create this robust pumping space for humans. By making considered variations to the previous scheme and increasing connections to the wider Zetland community, our proposal sees the creation of a centralised Rewilded Oasis.
Designing for resilience, our scheme celebrates wind, water and natural energy.
Gadigal of the Eora and Dharug Nation
Sydney, NSW
Renders: WOWOWA x DKO in collaboration with Traditional Owner B of hardyhardy & Oculus
Villa Rotunda takes its Italian namesake from Villa La Rotonda – a romantic architectural icon enmeshed with an Australianness that’s both bastardised and humble – the WOWOWA way.
So, when the practice was asked to renovate a latticed Victorian-era county cottage and former Romsey Schoolhouse, it seemed only fitting to lionise the treasured rotunda folly in Edinburgh Gardens of the same colonial lineage. This typology mash-up invites and distorts the visual language of both rendering them decidedly Australian – and not European. Our rotunda walls wouldn’t be painted stucco but rammed earth with ingredients from the local quarry and locally sourced internal timbers and materials. The creamy clay matches the original yellowy weatherboards with the trimmings of each structure establishing the internal colour pallet, that would embellish this tree change residence – beautiful mints, greens & rusts.
Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country
Romsey, Victoria
Photography: Derek Swalwell
An architect’s own house is expected to be the pinnacle of their creative pursuits. The premise of this was even the source of inspiration for Director, Monique’s video series called ‘If you were mine’ that gave away renovation ideas for various styles of houses in Melbourne.
Though, for Mon & Scott, the Directors of WOWOWA Architecture, their own home #WOWOWAMagic is really justa modest, unexpectedly voluminous, little treat. Designed during maternity leave, this luscious pink, copper and maroon renovation to a terracotta roofed Californian Bungalow, is a family home for 3.
Built in the 1930’s as a dual occupance, there is a tall 6m high wall that separates the two dwellings. The simple gesture was to continue this brick boundary wall out towards the backyard and capitalise on the geometry prescribed by the roof space.
Since this Bungalow was not adorned with an impressive arched front, a delightful cinquefoil arch was embellished at the back. Both a screening device and a nostalgic nod to a favourite Jaipurian holiday destination. Small moments unpack themselves as curious eyes take in the kitchen living dining space. Yummy materials feel cosy allowing the Directors to marinate in the joy of it all summer long.
Wurundjeri
Northcote, VIC
Martina Gemmola, The Design Files & Caitlin Mills
This Maribyrnong River facing Esplanade block is one of a kind. The house sits at the top of a hill positioned close to the Manna Gum lined suburban street and extends back only so far until the ground plummets down towards the water and becomes a beautifully landscaped cascading wilderness.
The client’s brief was to rework the façade to create a more inviting, open and sheltered entry sequence and create room for a bike store. WOWOWA’s contribution to the home was both small from a sqm perspective, but fundamental to the reading, functionality, liveability and lovability. The original house was heavily inspired by Glenn Murcutt’s 1984 costal Magney House in Bingie Point NSW with similar low metal arches rise up from the angular plan to allowing great light filled volumes to exist under the curved ceilings.
Our addition reads like a pinky peach Neo Po-Mo nugget insertion with a curved zig zag perforated metal entry wall that acts like an embracing hug as you enter the house. We felt it fitting to cheekily reference a project by Edmond & Corrigan – being the home grown Melbourne Post Modern counterpart to the homestead legacy of Murcutt whom inspired the original house. Edmond & Corrigan’s angular 2005 Lux House Alteration, was both modest and transformative – exactly what we wanted #WOWOWAEspy to be.
Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and the Bunurong peoples
Maribyrnong, VIC
Martina Gemmola
Wrong Champ is a home for collectors, a cluster of intimate courtyard spaces infused with curiosity and crafted collisions. WOWOWA’s addition to the home has carefully embellished the Arts and Crafts-inspired detailing of the existing Californian Bungalow, stretching the structure toward the unexpected while reinforcing connections to context. Intimate light wells have then been carved from the form to allow a sequence of spaces that balance separation and visual connection through curved cathedral windowed walls.
A confident mix of forms, references, colours and materials, the project combines a careful study of context and client without constraint. A nod to the clients’ European heritage as well as their desire to create a set of spaces for regular gatherings with a large extended family, Wrong Champ’s colour palette situates the creams and greens of its suburban context amongst a sprawling, mezze-like range of appetizing citrus and berry hues of varying intensity.
Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung
Brunswick West, VIC
Derek Swalwell
Small Giants Developments’ mission is to lead our community towards Empathy and a New Economy through the built environment. Using business as a major tool for positive social and environmental change, to provide people with a meaningful pathway to live a life of passion and purpose.
WOWOWA was asked by Small Giants to develop 9-13 Stewart Street, Richmond, into a worldclass positive change work destination – a
B Corporation building.
The building is to be occupied by like-minded small, medium and large organisations. It was to provide a basement, a generous public
interface via a porous and active ground floor plan, multiple coworking spaces, event spaces, tenancy spaces and a rooftop that to host a shared garden and recreational facilities.
Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung
Richmond
Sited on Wurundjeri Country, WOWOWA’s Hermon House is a delightfully colourful contemporary renovation to an early 20th Century Federation plus 90s renovation. This project perfectly personifies the notion – clients are merely custodians and contributions over the decades are to be honoured and celebrated.
And this yummy Australiana wonderland of textures and materials is no exception with all her rusts and greens, the new insertion opens up the home to the garden and invites the soiree of the year.
A house for hosting. The wonderfully philanthropic clients wanted a home suitable for holding fund raising charity events and have now successfully now held a multitude of celebrations within their beautiful Hawthorn abode. They were attracted to WOWOWA by our Bcorp Certification and values-based practice. They also came to us because they wanted a home that felt comfy and playful with epic amounts of both liveability and lovability. They wanted a party house combined with a home that opened onto a rustic native garden where the chickens could roam. Eclectic. Them.
We see all our projects as collaborations with our clients and invite people to weave stories and narratives that resonate with them into the fabric of their interiors. We aim to create forever homes and Hermon House is just that.
Wurundjeri
Hawthorn, VIC
Martina Gemmola, Styling Ruth Welsby
This prestigious double fronted Art Deco cream brick beacon of casual regality adorns a fancy suburban street in Moonee Ponds. WOWOWA’s role was akin to a surgeon – preforming open heart surgery, removing the scare tissue of the past renovation and creating a family home that celebrated the playful ornament of the original 1930’s era.
The first decision was to mirror the cream & brown brick robustness of the front facade, around the back. Artfully laid, inspired by local freshwater yabby the “Ponds’ brickwork is part of WOWOWA’s ‘Borromini Series’ that aims to use the humble brick to create complex geometry.
A sense of inside outside was crucial to this project. Working around existing bones, the renovation addon reads like an L shaped nugget, but in reality, the living room sits on the base of an existing basement and is largely a reduction more than an alteration & addition.
Wurundjeri Country
Moonee Ponds, VIC
Martina Gemmola, Styling Ruth Welsby
WOWOWA PONY is an agile alteration and modest addition to a 1960’s apricot brick home in Brighton East.
As an accretion of small moments of delight, Pony allows a family of six the ability to find a quiet moment alone or, to gather. The design sought to have maximum impact on the lives of the inhabitants with minimal effect on the amount of garden and outdoor space.
The existing axial plan was exaggerated through a clip-on colonnade. The hardworking appendage acts as an elongated living space, offering moments of respite, storage, and increased connection to the outdoors. Supported by soft brick columns, the sculptural roof bonds the two volumes below and accentuates the length of the colonnade. The optimistic form culminates in a folded edge, shaping three spouts that celebrate the rain and direct it into a trench for collection. This new relationship to the garden makes being or feeling outside easy.
Boon Wurrung
Brighton East
Photography: Martina Gemmola
Styling: Ruth Welsby
This jazzy Modernist Penthouse (Modo Pento) interior was a treat to design and a sensory delight from the outset. Situated on the top level of a three storey, marsupial coloured brown brick, walk-up in St Kilda, the client reveled in a smorgasbord of mid-century hors d’oeuvres imagery for inspiration. Prawn cocktails, ornately rolled cold cuts, jellies and moose tarts coupled with Tupperware a-plenty provided an endless supply of textures, colours and shapes to choose from.
Mostly oriented to the North, this home in the sky had been renovated in the early 2000s, with major works throughout and the addition of a second living space and roof terrace on the existing concrete roof deck. WOWOWA stripped out the prior renovation that sat at odds with the language of the building and worked hard to return the apartment to an original but amplified condition while also increasing the functionality and amenity.
Boon Wurrung & Woi Wurrung
St Kilda
Photography: Martina Gemmola
Styling: Ruth Welsby
Making the familiar strange & the strange familiar. The tree lined Fitzroy North street is peppered with cream & apricot double story triple brick veneer – many with deco waterfall edges and glamorous garages with roof decks above that connect to contribute to a grand entry sequence. One might ascend the stairs, drink martinis on the terrace before moving through a curved glass threshold front door to the parlour. Wanting to replicate the contextual romance, Merri Creek House mirror this exactly with its own street facing deck above the garage.
Also celebrating the waterfall features of the hood, circular turrets cascade along the site to reference in a fresh way. WOWOWA’s obsession with geometric farm relics and tall brick water structures also informed the double height towers for living. Merri Creek house is made up of two turrets – the front one split into rumpus below & study above, the middle turret housing the dining table and wall sweeping décolletage staircase. The third turret is deconstructed, meant to be likened to an eroding ruin approaching the creek abutting the site. A giant curved window cuts the surface and looks out towards an old magnolia tree.
Wurundjeri
Fitzroy North
Photography: Shannon McGrath
Three storey Fitzroy North 90’s warehouse gets deliciously reimagined. Rolling with an otherworldly industrial meets nostalgic Women’s Weekly cook book (the cake special) thematic, the aim was to reconfigure and land the random geometry of the original fit-out.
The candied textures of the kitchen were inspired by the mottled fruit tingle existing brickwork – reds, pinks, tans, mustards, browns, copper. Chocolate cake mixture island bench dances with the graphic marble behind. The yummy bench sitting on circular lolly feet bring joy and love to the family’s most used space.
A terracotta coloured 8m long bar, pantry, laundry & drying room runs behind the kitchen that then opens onto a wonderfully open dining living space that’s both intimate and expansive within the various volumes.
The entry foyer is curved with a tarted up original cranked stair. Lickable architecture is a WOWOWA fave and this family of sweet tooths were excited to treat themselves!
Wurundjeri
Fitzroy North
Photography: Martina Gemmola
Styling: Ruth Welsby
A DIY post-war renovation had left this Victorian Workers Cottage with a very high faceted vaulted ceiling affectionately leading to the name Il Duomo many years earlier. Highly ornate tiles contributed to an Italian flavour all were keen to see embellish. Wine, orecchiette, torn bread, muscatels and cheese wheels – the good life. A Medici feast in the thick of Carlton North complete with Octogon geometry to mirror the cathedral ceilings of its Italian sister – only turned on its side to create a terrarium like courtyard.
The Florentine façade also informed the colour scheme it’s pink white and green grid can be seen not only in the punchy pink black & green Terrazzo paving extending through the space inside and out to maximise the feeling of space of the tiny urban block. But also, in the grid of the ceiling – the acoustic panel filled waffle texture creates a variety of delicious moments as it collides with the courtyard geometry.
The brief called for a light-filled, optimistic, flexible, storage-filled & playful space. The first lightwell provides gives the bathroom, bedroom and kitchen aspect and cross ventilation. And, combined with the small yard at the back of the property, this home feels big & bright. The coved mint vanity unit gives joy to the little bathroom laundry space that, once again is suited to the festive Italianality thematic.
Wurundjeri
Carlton North
Photography: Martina Gemmola
Styling: Ruth Welsby
Kepler is a small space made expansive. Every decision made was to capture light, accentuate volume & be joyful. The stairwell up to the Master & study above could have been enclosed with storage under, instead became a pseudo rumpus / kids ken with sliding doors opening up onto a pocket garden light well also backing onto the kitchen – the perfect way to keep toys at bay & give visual connectivity throughout the home. The beautifully calm colour story of the kitchen blues, greens and apricots come from eucalyptus leaves.
Woi Wurrung
Brunswick East
Photography: Martina Gemmola
Styling: Ruth Welsby
Casa de Gatos translates to house of cats in Spanish. A Mexican themed space for a travel loving couple with four fur babies; two dogs and two cats. Located on a tiny double fronted block in North Fitzroy this tricky renovation to a DIY 70’s modernist renovation of a Victorian worker’s cottage was a visual language fiesta. This tight-&-right project lands in a radically conservative place – being both brutal & sympathetic to the existing, to carve out a contemporary work-horse of a home within the confines of a small footprint, while bringing joy and delight to a six-inhabitant party. Pops of bright orange in the kitchen and aqua tiles with terracotta grout in the bathroom reinforce the spaces liveability and lovability.
Wurundjeri
Carlton North
Photography: Martina Gemmola Styling: Ruth Welsby
Glorified in architecture forever, the humble tiger prawn becomes a two-pronged deity for this Fitzroy North renovation. What started as a nickname for the brown & gold Hawthorn brick frill pattern typically adorning the apertures of Victoria Terraces – ‘Tiger Prawn typology’ was embraced by the then new clients who sought out WOWOWA for the coining. The zig-zag (almost scalloping) pattern was then translated & embellished to form the full-blown scalloped extension to the rear. In the spirit of cohesion & reinterpretation of the existing visual language, the weightiness of the bricks was critical. The sculptural silver form exaggerates the verticality of the gesture as it whimsically draws a fortified silhouette in the sky – a man’s home is his castle after all.
Wurundjeri
Fitzroy North
Photography: Shannon McGrath
Styling: Ruth Welsby
Modernist Wonderland is a refurb to a yellow brick 60’s double storey gem for a Greek-Australian family – opa!!!!! It’s a colourful celebration and opening of the existing space, playful adaptation of original materials and embellishment of an optimistic era. Small spaces we decompartmentalised to create a space big enough for 80-person Christmas festivities. The large curved island bench was a nod to the families love of lamb cutlets and it seemed appropriate to couple with a brass bar element. Each of the 3 children selected their own paint colour for the door with matching carpet for full saturation. The bathroom is a colour party, and everyone is invited! The exterior addition was a large planted deck that tiers down connecting the kitchen to the garden.
Wurundjeri
Bulleen
Photography: Martina Gemmola
Styling: Ruth Welsby