2020 National Architecture Awards: National Award for Interior Architecture

Jury citation

In the spirit of architectural design as a continuum, Virginia Kerridge has recalibrated Graham Jahn’s 1999 Robin Boyd Award-winning project for the same client.

The original house had itself been a repurposed timber warehouse; this latest version was to accommodate a new chapter in the client’s life. The alteration – which is tuned by their intimate knowledge of the house over more than two decades of living in this inner-Sydney location – was made possible by the architect’s skill at sophisticated transformation.

Through the intuitive working over of the design between the original house and the client’s new focus, a smoothly connected set of spaces has evolved – some being subtle simplifications of the original rooms. As the circulation spirals around the plan, rising through the levels, each change of direction brings a new mood, established by a shift in finishes and colours. The wood of the founding timber warehouse and the concrete of the original house are exquisitely partnered with a new suite of rolled-steel details that remain true to the honesty of material throughout.

The result is a container that artfully screens the harshness of the inner-city site from the interior, while welcoming in the sun, breeze and birdsong. This is an example of sustainability at its best, where a new generation of building is crafted upon an original, with respect and delight.

Project credits

Architect Virginia Kerridge Architect; Project team Virginia Kerridge, Alejandro Galdo Cora, Alana Peddie, Thomas Wing-Evans; Builder Bellevarde Constructions; Structural engineer SDA Structures; Building surveyor Brunskill McClenahan and Associates; Cost consultant QS Plus; Photographer Nicholas Watt

Grant Pirrie House is located in Surry Hills, New South Wales, on the land of the Gadigal and Darug peoples of the Eora nation.