Architects South Melbourne

South Melbourne is Emerald Hill wearing work clothes: a Victorian civic centre with its town hall and market, terrace streets that survived every era of demolition fashion, and a working edge of shopfronts, studios and warehouses that keeps the suburb honest. Few places in Melbourne mix protected residential grain and commercial fabric this closely, and few reward an architect who can work both sides of that line as richly.

BOTH SIDES OF THE LINE

We are that kind of practice: 35+ years and 400+ projects across Victoria spanning homes, shopfronts and community buildings, led by registered architect Barbara Yerondais FRAIA, with delivered work in this council a suburb away.

35+

YEARS

400+

PROJECTS

59+

HERITAGE APPROVALS

OUTCOMES

What we make
happen here

Terraces that trade darkness for daylight without surrendering a detail the street loves. Shopfronts and small commercial buildings given second working lives as studios, hospitality rooms or homes. Sites tested honestly for what they could hold, then designed to hold it well. And every project priced once, at the start, on a fixed fee.

PROJECT MIX

The South Melbourne
workload

Terrace renovations & extensions

The suburb's staple brief: cellular Victorian plans replanned for light, storage and a garden connection.

Commercial & mixed-use work

Fit-outs and conversions in the old shopfront and warehouse fabric, where hospitality and studio uses meet heritage character.

Multi-dwelling feasibility

On the blocks that can carry more, tested before money is committed.

New homes on rare infill sites

Designed to sit inside a Victorian streetscape without costume or apology.

Heritage restorations

For graded buildings, residential and commercial alike.

DESIGN & APPROVAL

Working Port Phillip's
system

The council publishes its expectations

The council publishes its expectations rather than leaving you to guess: the Heritage Design Guidelines 2022 set out how alterations, additions and new work should respond to heritage places, and a formal pre-application advice pathway exists for testing a proposal before lodgement.

Designed to the guidelines from the first sketch

We design to the guidelines from the first sketch and use pre-application advice where it buys certainty, and your property's grading and overlay schedule are read precisely before anything is drawn.

Honest timelines

Victoria's 60-statutory-day clock governs the formal application, pausing for information requests and referrals, and we program for the real duration.

A terrace, a shopfront, or a block with more in it?

Find out what it honestly holds.

BOOK A FEASIBILITY SESSION

THE SUBURB

Why the suburb
needs both hands

South Melbourne's residential streets ask for restraint: gradings, precinct character, frontages the council rightly guards. Its commercial fabric asks for nerve: old buildings that need new economics to survive. The practice's range, from heritage restoration to adaptive reuse to multi-residential, means one designer can hold both briefs, which on this suburb's mixed blocks is frequently the whole point.

COMMON QUESTIONS

South Melbourne questions,
answered honestly

Do you handle commercial as well as residential work in South Melbourne?

Yes, and the suburb rewards it: shopfront conversions, studio and hospitality fit-outs, and mixed-use projects sit alongside our terrace renovations. The practice's record spans residential, commercial and community work.

My building is heritage graded. How limiting is that really?

Less than feared, more than zero: the grading and the council's Heritage Design Guidelines 2022 set what can change, and designing to them from the start is how approvals arrive without bruises. The practice's 59+ heritage approvals were mostly earned exactly this way. We read your exact controls as step one.

What does an architect-designed renovation or extension cost?

Across BY Projects' delivered work, renovation budgets have ranged from approximately $250,000–$570,000, and substantial extensions have started around $1 million. These are portfolio examples rather than South Melbourne price guides; scope and site drive the real number, and the feasibility session gives you one for your project.

Could my block hold more than one dwelling?

Some South Melbourne blocks can, and the honest answer comes from feasibility, not hope: zoning, heritage context, access and the numbers, tested in drawings before any commitment.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Useful Port Phillip
resources

Heritage Design Guidelines 2022 (PDF)

How the council expects alterations, additions and new work to respond.

Pre-application advice at Port Phillip

Testing a proposal before lodgement.

Planning Victoria

Permits for change of use, signage and commercial fit-outs.

Victorian Heritage Database

Check a property's listing and grading.

START THE CONVERSATION

Start with the
honest read

A full one-hour feasibility session with Barbara: the building, its controls, its capacity and your budget, worked through together over sketches. The concept you leave with is yours to keep, no obligation.

Schedule a Feasibility Session

Start the Conversation

Every project begins with a deep inquiry into site, heritage, and vision. Let’s discuss the strategic potential of your next work.

SCHEDULE A FEASIBILITY SESSION →

A PRELIMINARY CONSULTATION TO EVALUATE HERITAGE CONSTRAINTS, SITE POTENTIAL, AND PROJECT FEASIBILITY.