Red roof tops Thornbury House extension by Healy Ryan Architects

Australian studio Healy Ryan Architects has used a red-metal roof to crown this "simple yet impactful" extension to a house in Melbourne.

Named Thornbury House after the Melbourne suburb in which it sits, the addition replaces a previous extension to the weatherboard bungalow that Healy Ryan Architects said was "poorly integrated" with the north-facing garden.

Due to its location in a heritage zone, the existing facade of the house was left untouched, and the extension was designed to match its scale and roofline.

"The core concept behind the design was to introduce a simple yet impactful addition to enliven the existing house and create a sense of space and generosity on a small footprint," director Dan Ryan told Dezeen.

"This is a familiar approach for our practice, where we often find ourselves unstitching poorly considered past renovations in order to reimagine and reintegrate them with the original home and garden," he added.

The extension occupies the full width of the site and contains a living, dining and kitchen, opening onto a timber-decked terrace via a full-height sliding glass door.

Facing south towards the existing home, the extension's gable end has been finished with translucent polycarbonate panels, which cast a soft glow into the space.

"A key element of the design lies in the soft atmospheric quality of the rear living space," explained Ryan. "This emerges from the interplay between generous ceiling volumes and the shifting character of natural light that filters into the room throughout the day."

To emphasise this natural light, the interiors of the extension are deliberately minimal, with white walls and ceilings contrasted by black-stained timber kitchen units.

In contrast, the roof is finished with standing-seam steel panels in a dark red shade. This hue is continued to the drainpipes and a metal canopy that partially shelters the external terrace.

"Due to budgetary constraints, we were limited to standard colour options for the steel roofing and cladding," explained Ryan. "We chose Manor Red, which is an off-the-shelf finish for many roofs in the area."

"We liked the way this colour took on a new vibrancy in relation to the more traditional corrugated red roofs in the surrounding area," he added.

Within the existing home, two children's bedrooms have been created on the east side in place of a small bathroom, while a lightwell has been removed to create a courtyard crossed by a miniature timber bridge.

This freed up space for a central corridor that frames views of the garden from the home's entrance area, off which is the main bedroom and a lounge.

Elsewhere in Melbourne, Karen Abernethy Interiors and Architecture recently restored and extended a curving modernist home in the suburb of Ivanhoe East and Pandolfini Architects wrapped its South Yarra House with a windowless concrete facade that overhangs a glazed entrance foyer.

The photography is by Pier Carthew.

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