RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECT — BOROONDARA
Architect Surrey Hills
Surrey Hills earns its reputation through restraint. Federation cottages and Californian bungalows on deep blocks, generous front setbacks, mature canopy that has been protected for generations. It's a suburb where the streetscape itself carries weight, and where the right intervention is the one that respects what is already there before it adds anything new.
Zen Architects has worked across Surrey Hills and the Boroondara inner east for over 30 years. We design custom homes, considered extensions and whole-of-home transformations for clients who understand that the most considered architecture often hides in plain sight.
A SURREY HILLS PROJECT
A home shaped by its site.
Surrey Hills earns its reputation through restraint. Federation cottages and Californian bungalows on deep blocks, generous front setbacks, mature canopy that has been protected for generations. It's a suburb where the streetscape itself carries weight, and where the right intervention is the one that respects what is already there before it adds anything new.
Zen Architects has worked across Surrey Hills and the Boroondara inner east for over 30 years. We design custom homes, considered extensions and whole-of-home transformations for clients who understand that the most considered architecture often hides in plain sight.
PROJECT SHOWN: Crescent House, Surrey Hills — a long narrow sloping block resolved by stepping the floor with the fall of the land, lifting the ceiling at each level change, and retaining the original home as a studio. Original house preserved. Productive garden integrated.
Custom New Homes
Designed from first principles for your site, your orientation and your brief. Nothing predetermined.
Whole-of-Home Transformations
For Surrey Hills homes with the right bones that no longer fit how you live. We redesign them from the ground up.
Heritage Extensions and Additions
Surrey Hills' Federation and Californian bungalow stock rewards careful design. We extend and add to these homes with conviction. We also work with clients across Boroondara, including neighbouring Camberwell.
A private conversation with one of our senior architects about your Surrey Hills property and what it could become.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Questions worth answering.
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Yes, extensively. Surrey Hills sits within the City of Boroondara and we have decades of experience working through its planning controls. Surrey Hills carries strong neighbourhood character protections even outside formal heritage overlay areas — Boroondara pays particular attention to front setbacks, building height, mature vegetation and how new work relates to the existing streetscape. We design within these requirements as a matter of course and bring our clients through the process with realistic expectations from the outset.
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This is one of the more common briefs we receive in Surrey Hills, and one we approach with particular care. Crescent House is a strong example — a long, narrow, sloping block resolved by following the fall of the land rather than fighting it. Each sloping site has its own logic. Some work best with the home stepping down through the site, others with a more contained footprint that opens up the rear garden. The right approach comes from understanding the specific block before any design decisions are made.
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Surrey Hills has a deep stock of Federation cottages, Californian bungalows and interwar homes that were well-constructed and are worth keeping. The right project often retains and extends rather than demolishes. Sometimes the answer is a sympathetic rear extension, sometimes a complete reimagining behind a retained street facade, sometimes — as with Crescent House — keeping the original home entirely and building a new residence behind it. We work through that decision with our clients before any design commitment is made.
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Significantly, and for the better. Surrey Hills' mature trees are part of what makes the suburb worth living in, and they shape what can be built where. Tree protection requirements through Boroondara's Significant Tree controls, root zone setbacks, and the way canopy affects light and orientation — these are early-stage design considerations, not afterthoughts. We start every Surrey Hills project by understanding the existing trees and working with them.
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Often families who have lived in the area for years and want a home that grows with them, or empty-nesters reimagining a home now that the children have moved on. They tend to know the suburb well, value its character, and want a home that respects what is already there while quietly making it work harder. They are not in a rush. They want the right outcome, and they understand that takes time.