Architects Albert Park

Two projects say more about our Albert Park credentials than any brochure paragraph could. On Alfred Street in neighbouring Port Melbourne, we extended a significant double-fronted Victorian inside a Heritage Overlay using what we called the Shadow-Line strategy: a recessive, dark-clad upper storey behind a central light-court, doubling the home's functional capacity while staying invisible from the primary street frontage. And at Lyon's Den, under one of the City of Port Phillip's most restrictive overlays, we won approval, through VCAT, in six months, for a substantial extension to a derelict Queen Anne cottage and a new contemporary home on the adjacent title.

SAME COUNCIL, PROVEN TWICE

Same council as Albert Park. Same rules. Same conversations with the same planners. Registered architect Barbara Yerondais FRAIA leads the practice, whose record runs to 35+ years, 400+ projects across Victoria and 59+ heritage approvals.

35+

YEARS

400+

PROJECTS

59+

HERITAGE APPROVALS

PROJECT MIX

What Albert Park
owners bring us

Terrace renovations

In the streets around St Vincent Gardens, where the rooms are generous, the plans are Victorian, and the light is always one design move away.

Extensions behind protected frontages

The discipline of our Alfred Street project in Port Melbourne: everything gained, nothing visible from the street.

Restorations of significant homes

Where original fabric leads and new work defers.

Multi-title & dual-asset thinking

The Lyon's Den discipline: where a site holds more value than its current building admits, we test it honestly.

New homes on the rare empty block

Designed to belong among century-old neighbours.

DESIGN & APPROVAL

Port Phillip, navigated
with its own tools

The ordinary rules run first

Setbacks, overlooking, neighbour amenity and parking shape terrace projects here before heritage enters the room, and a design that answers them early is a design that keeps friends on both sides of the fence.

The council's free heritage advice, folded in early

The council runs a free heritage advice service for owners and occupiers of heritage buildings, covering the practical surface of a project: colour schemes, fences, facade restoration, even solar panel placement. We fold its advice in early rather than discovering it late.

Read the grading before anything else

Albert Park's protections are among Port Phillip's most comprehensive, and reading your property's exact grading and schedule is where feasibility starts.

Honest timelines

Victoria gives councils 60 statutory days and stops the clock for requests and referrals. Our Lyon's Den approval ran six months including a tribunal; every case is its own, but that is the standard of preparation we bring.

Wondering what your terrace could become behind its face?

See the answer drawn, the Alfred Street way.

BOOK A FEASIBILITY SESSION

THE SUBURB

The suburb,
plainly

Albert Park is one of Melbourne's most intact Victorian suburbs: terrace rows and freestanding villas around St Vincent Gardens, a village strip, the lake at the end of the street. People buy here for the fabric, which is precisely why the council protects it and why the architecture that works here adds without announcing. Those constraints reward practice, and ours has been tested in this council twice.

OUTCOMES

What the work
delivers

Twice the functional home behind an unchanged frontage. Value unlocked from land the current building underuses. Approvals won because the drawings answered the hard questions before they were asked. Fees fixed from the start, so ambition and budget are agreed once, honestly.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Albert Park questions,
answered honestly

Can I extend an Albert Park terrace without changing the streetscape?

That is precisely what our Alfred Street project in neighbouring Port Melbourne did: a recessive upper volume behind a light-court, invisible from the primary street frontage, doubling the home's capacity. The method transfers; the design is particular to each house.

What if the council or a neighbour objects?

We design to persuade the assessment, and where it goes further, we have been to VCAT and won approval within six months on a highly restrictive overlay. Track record, not a promise: outcomes depend on each case.

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 Albert Park price guides; scope and site drive the real number, and the feasibility session gives you one for your project.

How do you get real light into a Victorian terrace?

From above and from within: light-courts, roof glazing, and plans reorganised so the living rooms sit where the sun does. Alfred Street's central light-court is the worked example, and the same thinking transfers to most terraces here.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Useful Port Phillip
resources

Port Phillip heritage advice

The council's free service for heritage-building owners.

Pre-application advice

The formal pathway before lodgement.

Victorian Heritage Database

Check a property's listing and grading.

START THE CONVERSATION

Start where Alfred
Street started

A full one-hour feasibility session with Barbara: your house, its grading, its hidden capacity, worked through with a pencil moving. You keep the drawn concept and the recommendation. 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.