a contemporary renovation completes in melbourne
Northcote House sits within a compact site in Melbourne, Australia, designed by LLDS as a reworking of a Victorian terrace. The narrow plot runs east to west, with a design that raises the ground plane to form a roof garden, giving back outdoor space within a dense urban condition.
This elevated landscape carries a brown roof that supports local ecology while extending the life of the house beyond its footprint. Beneath it, a hall-like volume gathers kitchen, dining, and entry within a single continuous space. The scale recalls nearby factory lofts and church halls, where openness supports shared occupation.
Designed as the architect’s own home, the project reflects a preference for smaller gathering spaces distributed across the plan. Each area supports a different mode of occupation, from the compact kitchen and dining space to the double-height ‘snug’, an intimate space encircled by a sculptural stair. The rooftop terrace opens out to offer views across surrounding rooftops toward distant landscapes surrounding the city.
image © Tom Ross
a fluid staircase centers the northcote house
At the center of the Northcote House, the team at LLDS sculpts a circular ‘snug.’ A void above draws daylight deep into the house and allows air to move through its full depth. Surrounding this fluid element, bedroom suites sit to either side. Movement flows around this snug, with stairs wrapping its edge and creating a gradual descent into a more enclosed, tactile space.
The absence of internal doors between primary rooms allows continuous movement, shaped instead by material shifts and level changes. Dark green finishes sit against timber stairs and wall linings, creating a consistent atmosphere.
Within the snug, locally sourced kangaroo and deer hides introduce a heavier, grounded texture against the concrete surfaces. The east bedroom carries a vaulted concrete soffit, transferring loads from the roof while shaping the ceiling with a distinct curvature.
the Northcote House reworks a Victorian terrace within a narrow inner city Melbourne site
llds designs the facade as a living surface
Both east and west elevations act as trellises for climbing plants, drawing vegetation into the depth of LLDS’s Northcote House. These planted surfaces extend the roof garden’s ecological intent downward, creating a layered interface between interior and street. At the front, a raised veranda overlooks the laneway and adjacent car park, offering a quiet form of observation tied to the neighborhood.
This threshold space takes cues from the Japanese engawa, or porch, where interior and exterior meet through a loosely defined edge. It supports informal use while maintaining a connection to public life. At the rear, a smaller courtyard introduces privacy and includes an outdoor shower, adding another dimension to how the house engages with open air.
trellis facades carry climbing plants that extend greenery across the structure
Material logic and construction methods
The project is guided by material selection tied closely to fabrication and long-term performance. Components were chosen for their texture, durability, and ability to be handled by an owner-builder. Many elements were produced within a short radius of the site, integrating digital fabrication methods such as CNC milling and robotic processes.
PIR sheets were milled to form the textured concrete wall, then reused as insulation within the roof assembly. Point cloud scanning informed the construction process, aligning concrete textures across joints and guiding the fabrication of the free-form plywood roof. This roof, developed in collaboration with TGA Engineering, spans the main volume with an exposed soffit that expresses its geometry directly.
a hall-like living space brings kitchen, dining, and entry into a shared volume
a circular snug organizes the plan and draws daylight deep into the house
digital fabrication and local production guide the timber roof and concrete construction
stairs wrap the snug to shape a continuous path of movement without corridors
a textured concrete wall improves thermal performance and softens interior acoustics
project info:
name: Northcote House
architect: LLDS | @llds_architecture
location: Melbourne, Australia
photography: © Tom Ross | @tomross.xyz
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