A Family Home in Melbourne Gets an Extension With a Timber Brise-Soleil

Some might call it a shade structure. But the arbor-esque eave that Architecture Architecture included in the renovation of a family home in Brunswick West, an inner suburb of Melbourne, does more than just cast a shadow.

Because the home’s backyard faced north and west, the challenge for the firm was to devise a way to capture an abundance of sun in the winter, but guard the interiors from heat in the summer. The solution was to create a structure that acts like a brise-soleil. In cooler months, when the sun is lower, light filters through its wooden battens to warm the living spaces. In hotter months, when the sun is higher, the deep eave of structure guards the interiors from glare and heat.

Its metal framework creates a wedge shape that meets the home’s original gable at its peak, creating visual continuity between old and new.