Martina Gemmola
Martina is a photographer in Melbourne (Naarm) who works with designers of all disciplines. After living in Europe and the USA, she honed her craft, capturing her surroundings with sensitivity and balance. Led by light and form, she is constantly delighted by the spaces and gardens she works in, and the warm relationship she forms with her clients.

The Project
This house is a gracious old Victorian with a country feel. An earlier extension with a large on-show kitchen trapped between a working gully kitchen and internal walkway to a protruding bathroom and add-on laundry (to the west) had limited access to the backyard, leaving the back half of the house feeling dreary and light deficient. In collaboration with Ancher Architecture Office, the design provides warmth and natural light into the boundary-to-boundary south-facing rear of the house through the use of internal courtyards, voids and skylights.

‘The new two storey addition is held away from the original building, which creates two courtyard spaces either side of a largely glazed hall link. Though the use of masonry is maintained in the extension, there is a clear shift in texture and colour between old and new forms so each is immediately legible. The courtyards provide breathing space between the forms, but they also serve to allow space for solar penetration deep into the plan. There is an abundance of changing natural light conditions experienced within the building throughout the course of the day.’

Architect: Pipkorn Kilpatrick, Ancher Architecture Office