Architects Collingwood

Our studio is at 86 Wellington Street, Collingwood, so when we say we are local architects, we mean it literally. Collingwood's property mix is one of Melbourne's most interesting: workers' cottages and Victorian terraces, two-storey shopfronts with residences above, and the substantial warehouses of the manufacturing boom, many now converted into distinctive homes and workplaces. A few doors from our studio stands the former Foy & Gibson complex, described in the early 1900s as the largest factory in the Southern Hemisphere.

Image —
warehouse conversion,
Wellington St

Local, literally

BY Projects Architecture works across all of it: renovations, extensions, warehouse conversions, new homes and infill, commercial fit-outs and community projects. Registered architect Barbara Yerondais FRAIA (B.Arch, RMIT) leads the studio, and the practice behind her carries a record built over decades.

35+

Years

400+

Projects

59+

Heritage Approvals

Image —
Victorian shopfronts,
Johnston St grain

The Streets

The streets we
work with

Collingwood's building stock splits roughly into two families, and each has its own rules of engagement. The Johnston Street grain is Victorian and Edwardian: attached two-storey shops with residences over, face brick in red and polychrome, verandahs on posts, and the small cottages that covered this ground by the 1850s.

The Wellington Street corridor is industrial Collingwood: the woollen mills and clothing factories whose warehouses now anchor the suburb's conversions. Landmarks like the Collingwood Technical School, with its 1938 Dudok-Modern administration building by Percy Everett, show how seriously this suburb's fabric is taken; we told its story in our Collingwood Technical School spotlight.

Outcomes

What we help Collingwood
clients create

A cottage that lives larger than its footprint. A terrace with light and a garden connection its builders never imagined. A warehouse that keeps its industrial bones and gains a second working life. A new building that earns its place on an old street. And before any of it, a clear-eyed feasibility read: what your property's grading, structure and site will actually allow, decided with real numbers before you spend heavily.

We work on a fixed fee, agreed before design starts.

Image —
converted warehouse interior,
industrial bones kept

Project Mix

The work we do from
Wellington Street

Renovating a cottage or terrace

Small footprints, party walls and heritage streetscapes make this precision work, and the reward is a compact home that lives far larger than its plan.

Extensions behind protected facades

The classic inner-city brief: keep the face the street knows, rebuild the light, storage and flow behind it.

Warehouse & shopfront conversions

Adaptive reuse is one of the practice's deepest specialties, and Collingwood's industrial fabric is its home ground.

New homes & infill

On established streets, designed to hold their own beside century-old neighbours without imitating them.

Small multi-residential & mixed-use feasibility

Where a site might carry more than one future.

Commercial & community work

Barbara has a longstanding interest in social inclusion and has worked extensively on public housing.

Design & Approval

Approvals in Yarra,
including the heritage layer

Collingwood sits in the City of Yarra, a municipality carrying 54 heritage precincts. For any project, that context matters; for protected properties it defines the pathway:

Your building has a grading, and it drives what you can change

Your building has a grading (individually significant, contributory or not contributory) and the grading drives what you can change. Even "not contributory" buildings inside a precinct face permit requirements for most works, and a small number of properties carry internal alteration controls that reach interior works. We check both before anything else.

The council's front door is genuinely useful

Yarra offers pre-application advice as a complimentary service, and for smaller projects a planner will give verbal advice at Richmond Town Hall without an appointment. We use these channels early, before designs harden, so the formal application confirms a conversation already had.

The clock, honestly

The 60-statutory-day period is a starting point; information requests and referrals pause the clock, and we plan for that from the first sketch.

Common Questions

Collingwood questions,
answered honestly

How do I find an architect near me in Collingwood?

You will struggle to find one nearer: our studio is at 86 Wellington St, inside one of Collingwood's heritage precincts. Feasibility sessions run at the studio, a full hour with Barbara, sketching while you talk.

Can I convert a Collingwood warehouse or shopfront into a home?

Often, yes, and it is some of the most rewarding work we do. The path runs through your building's grading, Yarra's permit process and the building's structural realities; the feasibility session is where we tell you honestly what your building will and will not allow.

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

Do you take on commercial and community projects in Collingwood?

Yes. Alongside residential work the studio designs commercial fit-outs and community projects, and the practice has 235+ community and social-housing dwellings to its name; public housing has been a thread of Barbara's work for decades.

Local Knowledge

Useful City of Yarra
resources

Yarra's heritage overlay guide

Gradings, permit triggers and internal-alteration controls.

Request pre-application advice

Yarra's complimentary pre-application service.

Yarra's heritage precincts

The 54 precincts, including Collingwood's.

Victorian Heritage Database

Check a building's listing and grading.

Suite 4, 86 Wellington St, Collingwood VIC 3066

Come and see us on
Wellington Street

The first step is a full one-hour feasibility session with Barbara at the studio, Suite 4, 86 Wellington St, Collingwood. She sketches while you talk, working through your vision and your site's realities together, and you leave with a hand-drawn concept and a clear-eyed view of what your property will and will not allow. Yours to keep, no obligation.

Schedule a Feasibility Session