Thereâ€™s a secret hiding behind this Brisbane, Australia, homeâ€™s sharp, brutalist faÃ§ade: its original brick bungalow form is largely intact.

Carmen bought the three-bed house 16 years ago with her husband, Carl, to eventually retire there. At the time, they were living in a heritage home on a large block in the same leafy suburb of Brisbane. â€œWe loved the area, and it was a small house on a small block of land. We thought, Retirement, downsizingâ€”that would suit us in 10 or 15 yearsâ€™ time,â€ recalls Carmen, who has since stopped working.

Before: Exterior

After: Exterior

Carl had envisioned knocking down the 1970s bungalow to build a sustainable, energy-efficient home in its place, while Carmen thought the original house was worthy of a renovation. When Carl died a few years ago, Carmen was left to move forward with their downsizing plan on her own, and eventually decided to renovate rather than rebuild.

â€œWhat was always in the back of my mind was a quote Iâ€™d heard by Carl Elefante, an architect, who said that the greenest building is the one that already exists,â€ Carmen says. â€œIt cemented for me the idea that I could reuse and upgrade rather than demolish and replace.â€

â€œThere was a sentimental aspect to it as well,â€ she adds. â€œIt continued my connection with Carl, because we bought the place together and had plans for it together.â€

Carmen reached out to Johnny Hyde at OH Architecture after seeing another of the firmâ€™s projects nearby. She says he was instantly on board with her vision for the house, which, while visually underwhelming, had far-reaching views to the coast and captured cool easterly breezesâ€”a boon in semitropical Brisbane.

â€œI said to Johnny that I donâ€™t need or want an extension. I want to be able to live at one level, and I want a house that is low maintenance and has an industrial aesthetic,â€ Carmen says. â€œIâ€™ve always loved brutalist design and raw materials.â€

Before: Living and Dining Room

After: Living and Dining Room

Hyde admits it was a unique brief in an area thatâ€™s better known for sprawling four and five-bedroom homes. â€œBut thatâ€™s what made it a cool and interesting project to start design sketching,â€ he says. â€œCarmen only wanted two bedrooms, one bathroom, a little library space downstairs and a bit of storage. Usually everyone wants a walk-in robe, a couple of ensuitesâ€”you end up having a bathroom in every single bedroom. This house was about pulling it backâ€”thatâ€™s the whole downsizing principle. She doesnâ€™t want to spend her whole life cleaning the house.â€

Before: Bathroom

After: Bathroom

Given that Carmen would be living alone, security was a priority in the redesign. To address it, Hyde placed a new garage in front of the house level with the main living area and created a concrete and metal â€œline of enclosureâ€ around the home so Carmen had a barrier between the street and the front door. A gate leads inside the enclosureâ€”in essence a new faÃ§ade wrapping around the houseâ€”which leads to the original front door and a stairwell to the garden and Carmenâ€™s library (located in the homeâ€™s old garage) on the lower level.

Before: FaÃ§ade

After: FaÃ§ade

Inside, not much changed with the layoutâ€”converting the third bedroom into a small walk-in wardrobe was as indulgent as it got. Rather, Hyde focused on maximizing the homeâ€™s assets by opening the interior to the northeast aspect and raising the ceiling.

â€œWhen we defined where Carmen was going to spend a lot of time it was like, okay, letâ€™s take the existing 2.4 meter ceilingâ€”which never feels awesome because itâ€™s quite a low heightâ€”and see what we can do to pop it up and create a bit of volume, which will get more natural light in and pull breezes through,â€ Hyde explains.

Before: Rear Balcony

After: Rear Balcony

The result? â€œYou come through that line of enclosure into the front door of the house, and it just completely opens up,â€ he says.

The front door opens into the now-spacious main living area, which comprises the kitchen, dining, and lounge, and flows out to the balcony. Down the hall, the two bedrooms and bathroom kept their lower ceiling height, in part due to budget, but also as a visual cue. â€œThe idea was that the point that the ceiling drops delineates the private spaces from the social areas of the house,â€ Hyde explains.

Carmen loves to cook and bake, so the kitchen was built to her specifications with custom cabinetry to store her extensive collection of appliances and utensils and keep bench tops clear. The space is designed for entertaining, with large sliding glass doors to the balcony on the northeast side of the home overlooking the backyard, and simple timber slats separating the kitchen from the living area.

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

Before: Hallway

After: Hallway

Outside, in keeping with the low-maintenance, minimal theme, Carmen engaged landscapers Green Care Project to create a lush garden of white-flowering Australian plants thatâ€™s high on visual impact but requires little upkeep, and definitely doesnâ€™t involve any mowing. Itâ€™s punctuated with gabion seats that contain a tribute to Carl: his old tools are scattered among the recycled construction rubble filling the wire baskets.

After: Garden

Street-side, concrete blocks, compressed fibre cement sheets and metal mesh have transformed the exterior without erasing the homeâ€™s history: glimpses of the original orange-hued brickwork hint at its humble backstory.

â€œItâ€™s a common brick that so many houses up here in Queensland used,â€ Hyde says. â€œWe were happy to keep it, but we were also like, how do we pair that with the materials we want to use? We started to play around with that material color and saw that the concrete looked really nice with it.â€

Here, the flourishing garden serves to soften the materialsâ€™ hard edges, with vines creeping up the steel mesh and shrubs spilling over the brickwork. "We had the view that the garden would take over and the faÃ§ade would soften into the landscape," Hyde adds.

Carmen, who is adamant she didnâ€™t want the house to look pretty or glamorous, is thrilled with it. â€œThe structure at the front is wonderful in so many ways. Not only does it mitigate the issues of heat and sun from the western elevation, but itâ€™s created a little bit of mystery. Itâ€™s like, whatâ€™s behind that?â€

Sheâ€™s sure that Carl would have approved, too. â€œHe was a wise man, a visionary man,â€ she says. â€œHe would have loved it.â€

More Before & After:

To Revive Their Dated Bungalow, First They Chopped It in Half

In Australia, a Tumbledown Midcentury Is Leveled Up With a Sculptural Stair

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Johnny Hyde, OH Architecture / @oh.architecture

Builder: Zone 1 Projects

Structural Engineer: SIA Engineers

Landscape Design: Green Care Project / @greencareproject

Appears In

Before & After: She Cloaked Her 1970s Brick Home in a Concrete-and-Metal â€œSkinâ€

Before & After: She Cloaked Her 1970s Brick Home in a Concrete-and-Metal â€œSkinâ€