A new take on an old Queenslander

A New Farm house in Queensland by Vibe Design Group. Photo: William Long

From a design business based in Melbourne, and in the first commission to renovate one of those traditional weatherboard Queenslanders that make the period suburbs of Brisbane so attractive, building designer Michael O'Sullivan has completed a project that has made the old house look more like its old self than it has for decades.

His New Farm clients had sought Vibe Design's input and out-of-towner status with the specific brief that they wanted a different story to what Brisbane-based architects were generally doing to update Queenslanders.

"They wanted a different interpretation," he says.

An original Queenslander in New Farm. Photo: William Long

What they have got in an addition that includesa new kitchen, master bedroom, several studies, and a stunning timber internal staircase that has enabled the removal of the front-of-house stairs, is a clarified and freshened frontage, albeit with an interesting new bracketing roof structure rising on the eastern side.

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O'Sullivan says this open-ended, squared-roof profile has several effects.

One is a "cradling" of the existing house, and the other is to allow the elegant lines of the original roof "to continue".

A stylish take on a Queenslander design. Photo: William Long

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A new take on an old Queenslander