Design in Detail

Designed by architect Neil Clerehan, the single-storey townhouse won House of the Year in 1967 and was heritage-listed in 2016. More than six decades on, it still offers answers to questions people ask of their homes today. 

A house that looks inward 

From the street, Fenner House may be considered understated. Without a single window revealing itself, it is easy to imagine its interior as dark and enclosed. 

Clerehan's challenge was to bring light and openness into the house without sacrificing privacy. Rather than opening outward, as most houses do, he turned this one inward. The front façade, built as a wall of concrete brickwork, protects the sacred need for privacy and allows the inhabitants to feel secure. 

Instead, light pours down through two internal courtyards set into the centre of the plan, one dividing the second bedroom from the dining space, a larger one between the main bedroom and living room, plus an external courtyard to the north of the kitchen and living room.  

These courtyards offer a seamless connection to the landscape, expanding every sightline through floor-to-ceiling sliding glass, drawing greenery in from every angle, and northern light into each room. Natural light is so often the first box people want ticked when searching for a home, and Fenner House is the perfect example.

Architecture as landscape 

Where many houses sit awkwardly on their block, Fenner House was shaped by it. Its front façade is a series of brick walls at varying levels, each doing several jobs at once: providing privacy, supporting the roof, and guiding movement through the site. The largest wall, running from deep within the house to the footpath, works like an outstretched hand, guiding visitors inside. That idea continues throughout, the walls rarely meeting directly, interrupted instead by windows and courtyards that let light through and keep the house feeling open. 

In the living room, full-height glazing blurs the line between inside and outside, the northern courtyard becoming an extension of the living space itself. Elsewhere, brick runs straight past window edges, blurring the house's boundary further, spaces as easy to entertain in as to live in, until garden and living space feel like one.

Warmth through materials 

Clerehan's sense of place carries through into his choice of materials as much as his floorplan. The palette is deliberately simple: brick, timber and glass; glass for lightness, brick for solidity, timber for warmth, each left exposed so its grain and texture do more than paint or plaster ever could. Even before furniture arrives, these raw materials wrap the living spaces in a warmth and homeliness that is felt the moment you step inside. 

Perhaps the cleverest decision is using the same materials inside and out. Where most houses treat internal and external finishes as separate, here they blend, softening the transition between the two and drawing the surrounds further into the house.

A lasting lesson 

It is easy to see why Fenner House won House of the Year, and why it remains one of Melbourne's most celebrated modernist homes. Clerehan brought a real sense of playfulness to its design, and later described it as his most important work, a manifesto for what he believed a well-designed home should be. More than six decades on, its lessons still hold: good architecture does not need to be extravagant, only the result of decisions that respond to how people live, creating houses that are as much a pleasure to inhabit as they are to look at. 

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