Terrace House Conversion
Client Research Project
Year 2024
Scope Concept Design, Documentation, Research, Speculation, Place Making, Housing
Team Peter McGregor, Finn Holle, Chantelle Noorizadeh
The Housing Crisis. The conversion of a single terrace into 2 dwellings.
This project is a speculation on a reversible strata sub-division of larger terraces into 2 separate stacked and strata dwellings. There are thousands of these terraces in Sydney within the city of Sydney and surrounding inner city suburbs, including Woollahra, Randwick and Inner-west LGAs.
A large demographic influence on housing is family size. As the ratio of people per dwelling changes a ratio change of just .1 decimal point can mean thousands of extra dwellings are required.
The cyclical change of family size can further impact this demographic spiral downwards to smaller dwellings. Many empty nesters want to stay in their area BUT their houses are often outdated and too large for their current needs. A simple internal sub-division into 2 smaller dwellings doubles the housing capacity and provides a more updated model. And it could be done as a long life loose fit reversible project.
The Project
Typically the largest room in a terrace house is the level 1 front bedroom, (as it has no passage or circulation), so it makes sense that this becomes the main living area of the 2nd dwelling. Access to the new dwelling via a new external staircase mimimises change to the internal fabric of the house. A spiral stair tower can be ‘dropped’ into place and placed within the front setback. Over time the stair can be easily removed to reverse the process back to a single dwelling.
The stair reads like an iconic and sculptural emblem on the street. It can be a pure cylindrical form, framed by a decorative metal screen, which talks to the Victorian lacework of the verandah. They might be a range of colours, broadcasting the dwelling change and acting like a second front door to the passerby and the street. These spiral stairs can come and go as, housing needs fluctuate.
Technical issues such as fire rating floors or ceilings are not complex in terrace houses. A second bathroom on the ground floor or level 1 is quite easily inserted into the centre of the house.
See attached the drawings and council’s droll, dull technical reply, where heritage and technical issues shut down engagement with the idea for thousands of extra dwellings within the existing building fabric.
