Erindale
Ripponlea
A semi detached Federation house in Ripponlea, Melbourne, renovated with a rear addition, finished in February 2025 for a family of three. Austin Maynard Architects refused the two storey box on the back: rooms were re purposed and re oriented rather than demolished, and only 59 square metres is new build, a single storey living zone at the rear with curved glass, a white steel shade structure and a courtyard of recycled brick. The street front was left alone, white brick, stained glass and terracotta tiles renewed to match the identical other half of the pair, behind the long picket fence the two halves share.
The garden is by Saint Remy, and The Design Files ran it on its own nine months before the house: 22 trees planted, 18 of them birches, making a small silver birch woodland off the back, and a front garden of quartzite paving, a reading nook and Virginia creeper layered around the one mature birch already there. The trees were about ten months in the ground when the house was photographed. The practice names the project Erindale.
Austin Maynard Architects
A Melbourne practice founded in 2002 by Andrew Maynard and renamed in 2016 to recognise director Mark Austin. It puts wellbeing, joy and optimism at the centre of its designs, an approach it calls the architecture of enthusiasm, and works across single homes, multi-residential, retail and commercial projects.
Architecture Austin Maynard Architects (@austinmaynardarchitects). Photography @victorvieaux. Build @building_integrity_group. Landscape architecture @saintremystudio. Seen via @thedesignfiles.
The picture comes from this post on Instagram.
Researched August 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.