SPACE mission

Dubbed the Big Small House’, this historic Melbourne cottage receives a contemporary makeover, packed with welcome surprises.

- Chris Pearson

“I never dreamed I would live in a house like this,” says owner Bryan, marvelling at the huge light and airy open plan area that forms the back of his Melbourne home. And anyone walking past its humble weatherboard frontage could hardly imagine the one-time worker’s cottage contains delights such as this. Like origami, this house tantalisingly unfolds as you walk through it, with the unexpected at every turn, starting with a soaring hallway that leads to that double-storey height void at the rear. And there’s even more…

When Bryan and his wife, Magdalena, bought the house in 2017, it had a nineties-built, open-plan extension at the back, with three bedrooms occupying the original cottage and a loft above accessed by a pulldown ladder. But, with that undercooked roof space and a poky kitchen among its sins, it failed to function for them and their two daughters, Lenka, now 13, and Esmee, 11.

So the couple enlisted Anna Dutton Lourié and Chema Bould of Bower Architecture & Interiors to embark on a space mission to create a home with communal areas to mix and mingle in but also rooms for precious me-time.

“It was quirky with charming details and playful surprises, such as that pull-down ladder into the attic,” says Chema of the house. And that loft sported churchlike stained-glass windows. By contrast, the original rooms, reflecting the spartan past of the worker’s cottage, were devoid of decoration, except for leadlights.