A curved, timber-lined ceiling shelters the fully-glazed living spaces of Harvest House, the extension and renovation of a worker’s cottage in Australia by architecture studio Cera Stribley for its founder.
The extension, which was recently been shortlisted in the house extension category of Dezeen Awards 2025, was designed for Cera Stribley founder Chris Stribley, who purchased a dilapidated worker’s cottage on a large suburban site in 2019.
Living on the site during the Covid-19 pandemic, Stribley developed a passion for gardening that informed an extension that was designed to feel “deeply connected to landscape and the rhythms of nature”.
“Harvest House reimagines the Australian home as a living extension of the natural environment,” explained the studio.
“Modest in footprint but rich in experience, it challenges the prevailing trend of ‘bigger is better’ in suburban extensions, instead prioritising garden over built form,” the studio continued.
“The result is a calm, immersive home where outdoor space isn’t an afterthought – it’s the heart of the design.”
Maximising its connections to the outdoors, the extension is housed within two separate volumes at the back of the existing cottage.
The volumes were divided by areas of planting and linked by an open-air walkway that creates a direct axis from the front of the home to the garden.
The largest of the extension contains the living, dining and kitchen area, which occupy a single, open-plan space that overlooks the garden through two fully glazed walls incorporating sliding doors.
“A refined axial plan, layered courtyards, and clever screening draw in light, frame outlooks, and maintain privacy,” said the studio.
“Pocket gardens, atriums, and natural ventilation strategies bring the outdoors deep into the home, creating spatial and emotional clarity,” it added.
Above the living space, a gently curving ceiling pulls in light from a north-facing clerestory window, and is clad entirely in dark timber planks that match both the interior walls and the ceilings of the external walkway.
Accompanying this timber is a material palette that the studio describes as “raw and honest”, including a stainless steel kitchen unit, solid timber kitchen island and areas of exposed concrete.
“Formally modernist yet emotionally grounded, the architecture is defined by its restraint – raw, honest materials that age with dignity, curved ceilings that soften light, and a layout that encourages ritual, connection, and slow living,” said the studio.
The living area opens onto a dining terrace paved to blend with the interior, which looks out over an area of lawn wrapped by weathered steel beds and a large vegetable garden and shed.
On the opposite side of the central walkway, a smaller volume covered in textured grey render contains the home’s main bedroom, opening onto the garden through a large timber-framed opening.
The frontage of the historic cottage has been retained and renovated, and within its original footprint is a street-facing study, two smaller bedrooms and an en-suite bathroom that serves the main bedroom.
Elsewhere in Australia, architecture practice Lovell Burton recently renovated a worker’s cottage in Melbourne to also have a stronger relationship to its garden, adding a flexible extension with sliding walls and full-height, rotating glass doors.
The photography is courtesy of Cera Stribley.
