Outside in design: the architectural style Australia leads

Elegant alfresco spaces for entertaining and a smooth flow from the interiors of a home to outdoors are today among the highest priorities for property buyers in Australia. And this architectural style is now influencing the world.

While most new houses are specifically designed with this in mind,  older prestige properties increasingly are undergoing major renovations to ensure they also fit current lifestyles.

Goran Stojanovic X.Pace Design Group architect, who in 2000 undertook a $2.5 million project to modernise a 1927 Hunters Hill home, is one who has worked on converting a British influenced older home into a property that now embraces its surroundings.

“It was a very classic, traditional house which didn’t have a good interface at all between the inside and outside so we had to re-jig the whole house in order to create that,” says Stojanovic.

The transformation has paid off. Today the property’s main living areas feature full-length windows and wide verandah’s that take in the harbour view.

“That kind of change is always absolutely worth the investment because traditional houses were based around the British model, and very enclosed,” he says.

“It seems bizarre that some of those designs, the result of Britain’s ‘windows tax’ where people reduced the size of their windows to pay less tax, were transferred from 17th-century Britain to 21st-century Australia!”

Historically in Australia it was mainly during the interwar years that we started to open up our homes to the outside, says Harriet Edquist,  professor of architectural history in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University.

“The modernist movement played a part in that and also we started to have the technology in the early 20th-century that allowed us to have glazed walls and large expanses of glass.

“What’s also interesting is that we’re now seeing Australian architecture influencing British architecture in a bit of reverse engineering, when we’re seeing them bringing in the outdoors and having bigger windows, porches and verandas, too.”

Queensland was, naturally, the forerunner of this trend, with the climate encouraging much more outdoor living, according to Brisbane architect Shaun Lockyer of Shaun Lockyer Architects.

“We have a longer legacy of that and the prevalence of Queenslanders as our vernacular helped, whereas living in Melbourne and Sydney was always more compartmentalised,” he says.

“But now we’re seeing the outdoors become a fundamental part of homes’ design there too, rather than as something just built and tacked on to the outside.”

Lifestyles have changed  significantly, even in the past 50 years, believes McGrath agent Tracey Dixon, who is selling the Hunters Hill home.

“Previously, kids used to go out and play in the streets but now the whole family does a lot more entertaining at home,” she says.

“Everyone likes to congregate in casual entertaining areas and the flow between inside and outside, and the floorplan, are very, very important.”

The critical element is to make sure the style and proportions of outdoor areas match those of the interiors, and that they’re all on the same level,  Stojanovic says. “You want to be able to open doors and not be quite sure whether you’re inside or out, rather than ending up with a jarring hybrid.”

In Melbourne’s Hampton a John Lochead designed home does just that.

“It has beautifully integrated indoor-outdoor spaces, making the most of its north-facing orientation, too,” says selling agent  Robin Parker of Marshall White of the design. 

The six-bedroom home features three north-facing interconnected wings with walls of glass. Each wing looks oto private gardens dotted by Queensland bottle trees. 

Also in Melbourne a property in Kew, which has had a $4.5 million reinvention and today comes with a price tag of more than $10 million, is another prime example of the popular style. 

“I’ve never seen a house of this size with such a seamless transition,” says selling agent James Tostevin of Marshall White Hawthorn. 

The Edwardian “Grange House” has been transformed through a contemporary gallery-like rear extension. Floor to ceiling sliding windows bring the surrounding gardens and entertaining areas within reach.