Architects in Melbourne's Western Suburbs

Five projects delivered west of the city since 2022 make our case better than adjectives would. Two apartment interiors rebuilt on Dudley Street, West Melbourne, one a full retrofit with thermal upgrade. A 1960s triple-fronted brick veneer in Altona transformed by renovation and extension, and an Edwardian in the same suburb remodelled within its Heritage Overlay. A new two-storey home on Military Road, Avondale Heights, shaped to catch its views without overlooking the neighbours.

Image —
Altona transformation,
renovation and extension

A Delivery Corridor, Not an Outreach Program

The west is not an outreach program for this practice; it is a delivery corridor with recent receipts. Registered architect Barbara Yerondais FRAIA leads BY Projects Architecture, with 35+ years and 400+ projects across Victoria behind the studio.

35+

Years

400+

Projects

59+

Heritage Approvals

Project Mix

What the west
brings us

Postwar transformations

The Altona discipline: triple-fronters and brick veneers with honest bones and enormous headroom for better living.

Period renovations

Weatherboard and Edwardian stock from Footscray to Williamstown, including under Heritage Overlays.

New homes

On the west's more generous blocks, designed around outlook, orientation and privacy.

Apartment and interior projects

The Dudley Street discipline: services, joinery and thermal comfort rebuilt as one job.

Warehouse and industrial conversions

In the inner-west fabric.

Design & Approval

Three councils delivered in,
a fourth known well

The delivered set above ran through the City of Melbourne, Hobsons Bay and Moonee Valley. Maribyrnong, the fourth of the west's big planning systems, we know through its published rules, including minor-works exemptions many owners never hear about. The west also adds its own layers: former-industrial land and lower-lying pockets can carry contamination or flood overlays, so every feasibility starts by reading the lot's full stack. Then the usual discipline: drawings built for the assessment, and the 60-statutory-day clock programmed at its real pace, not its printed one.

Image —
new home on Military Road,
Avondale Heights

The Territory

The west,
honestly read

The western corridor runs from the city's own edge, West Melbourne, where two of the five projects sit, out through the bayside west to the growth fringe. Its fabric works hard: postwar family homes with land around them, workers cottages closer in, warehouse stock, and new estates further out. Blocks are often generous and budgets do real work here, which suits a practice that prices on fixed fees and treats a triple-fronter's transformation with the same seriousness as a terrace's.

Outcomes

What western
clients get

A postwar house that turns out to have been hiding a great home. An Edwardian kept honest through its overlay. A new build that uses the block the estate builders would have wasted. Delivered examples of each, since 2022, within this corridor.

Image —
Dudley Street apartment interior,
West Melbourne

Common Questions

Western questions,
answered honestly

Is a 1960s brick veneer worth renovating?

Frequently, yes: our Altona transformation took exactly that stock and rebuilt it, renovation plus extension, into a home with decades ahead of it. Structure is usually sound; the gains come from replanning, light and thermal performance.

Do you take on smaller western projects or only big ones?

Both: the delivered set spans apartment interiors to a full new home. Fixed fees are agreed per project, so the scale conversation is honest from the start.

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

Which western suburbs do you cover?

Delivered work sits in West Melbourne, Altona and Avondale Heights, and Footscray and Williamstown each have their own dedicated page; broadly, if it is west of the city, it is in range.

Local Knowledge

Useful western-council
resources

Moonee Valley heritage

The free advisory service in one delivered council.

Hobsons Bay heritage guidelines

The council's published heritage design guidance.

Planning Victoria

Overlays and permit pathways.

Victorian Heritage Database

Check whether a property is heritage listed.

Start the Conversation

The receipts travel;
so do we

A full one-hour feasibility session with Barbara: your house or block, the local precedent, the honest scope. Drawn, priced on a fixed fee, yours to keep. No obligation.

Schedule a Feasibility Session