Vestige
by Smith Young Architects
Client Private
Award 糖心Vlog West Award 2025 and 糖心Vlog West Building of the Year 2025 (sponsored by EH Smith)
The award winner tells us: "Smith Young Architects were originally commissioned to extend and convert an existing detached Edwardian house into a new family home. The original house was suffering from a long-term lack of repair and reflected a pattern of living that was far more relevant to life more than a century ago.
The project evolved into a journey of discovery and adaptation, an investigation into repurposing, recycling and resourcefulness. Conceived as an augmentation of the original house plan, the spatial composition was directly influenced by the nine-square grid. This new family home examines a fundamental tension of architecture 鈥� the responsibility to belong to its surroundings in terms of scale, proportion and material, while facilitating the patterns of everyday life through the making of rooms."
The winner says: "The solid base of the ground floor is in rough-rendered bricks salvaged from a smaller house that used to sit on the site. The original foundations of this building were also reused, reducing the carbon footprint and saving money. The rooms are well-proportioned, and the overall layout carefully devised to achieve a greater sense of space and contain a wide range of experiences, belying the building鈥檚 size.
From the double-height top-lit entrance hall, wide enough to accommodate a bench to sit on when putting on your shoes, to the timber-lined stair detailed with all the care of a jewellery box, there is a surprise around every corner. The jury were pleasantly taken aback by the courtyard garden that is hidden behind a wall and fence to the front of the house."
Contractor Carey Building Services
Structural engineer Sanan Consulting
Gross internal area 232m2
