Home Extension Architects Melbourne

The bigger house without moving: extensions designed by a registered architect on a fixed fee.

Book a Feasibility Session
Fixed Fees 35+ Years 59+ Heritage Approvals Registered Architect (FRAIA)

A home extension is Melbourne's favourite answer to an impossible question: how do you get the bigger house without losing the street, the school zone and the garden you already love? Done well, an extension is not added floor area; it is the whole house replanned around how your household actually lives, with the new work carrying the light and the old work keeping the soul.

Image —
shadow-line extension,
Port Melbourne
Extensions, Drawn for Decades

BY Projects Architecture has been drawing that answer for 35+ years, across 400+ Victorian projects. The stock this page serves is most of Melbourne: terraces and cottages on tight inner lots, Federation and interwar homes on middle-ring blocks with room to move, and postwar houses whose plans owe nothing to how families live now. Registered architect Barbara Yerondais FRAIA leads every engagement, and the fee is fixed before design begins.

35+
Years
400+
Projects
59+
Heritage Approvals
Ways to Extend

The four ways
Melbourne homes grow

Back

The classic rear extension, kitchen, living and garden connection rebuilt where the lean-to was. Right when the block has depth and the sun cooperates.

Up

The second-storey addition, right when land is the constraint and the outlook or the plan argues for height. It is decided in section drawings, setbacks, massing, overshadowing, neighbour sightlines, long before it is decided in floor plans, and it is a specialty of ours on tight blocks.

Sideways or wrapped

Side infill and courtyard captures that mine space the plan wastes.

Behind the face

On protected streets, the extension that stays invisible from the frontage while doubling the life behind it; our Port Melbourne shadow-line project is the worked example: a hidden storey the frontage never admits to.

Image —
1880s Carlton townhouse,
major extension
Proof

Extensions on
the record

The register tells the range: a substantial extension plus second dwelling won through VCAT on a restrictive Port Phillip heritage site; a 1960s triple-fronter in Altona renovated and extended into a modern family home; a major extension and renovation of an 1880s Carlton townhouse approved in six months; and the shadow-line extension that added a hidden storey to a Victorian workers cottage. Different blocks, different councils, one discipline.

Out of room but not out of love with the house?

Book a feasibility session; the honest extension answer gets drawn in an hour.

Book a Feasibility Session
Approvals

Permits,
told straight

Most substantial extensions need a planning permit, and all need a building permit. Neighbourhood character, setbacks, overshadowing and overlooking are the usual battlegrounds; heritage overlays add their layer where they apply. We design for the assessment from sketch one, use pre-application advice where councils offer it, and program the 60-statutory-day clock, and its pauses, plainly.

Image —
planning drawings,
section and setback studies
Image —
rear extension, light-filled
living and garden connection
Outcomes

What an architect-led
extension buys

A plan that works as one house rather than old-plus-new. Light where the family actually lives. An addition the street accepts, which is what makes approvals move. And cost certainty: across BY Projects' delivered work, substantial extensions have started around $1 million, portfolio examples rather than a price guide, with your project priced at feasibility and the fee fixed from the start.

Common Questions

Extension questions,
answered honestly

How much does a home extension cost in Melbourne?

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

Should we extend up or out?

The block decides: depth and sun favour going back, tight land and outlook favour going up, and the second storey is judged in section drawings before anyone falls for a floor plan. Feasibility answers it for your house specifically.

Do I need a planning permit for an extension?

Usually, for anything substantial: character, setbacks, overshadowing and overlooking are assessed, plus heritage where an overlay applies. We confirm your property's exact position first and design for the assessment from the start.

Will an extension work on a heritage-listed house?

Frequently, and it is our deepest lane: 59+ heritage approvals, including extensions won on highly restrictive sites. The craft is adding boldly behind what the street values.

Local Knowledge

Useful
resources

Planning Victoria

Permits, setbacks and overlays.

Victorian Heritage Database

Check your property first.

Home-extension articles: extension types

The ways Melbourne homes grow, compared.

Second-storey additions

Going up on a heritage home, explained.

Start the Conversation

Start with the
house you have

A full one-hour feasibility session with Barbara: your house, your block, the four ways it could grow, and the clear recommendation. Drawn concept yours to keep, no obligation.

An extension enjoyed next Christmas is being drawn this one; approvals and builders take the year between.

A full one-hour feasibility session, in person, where Barbara sketches your design live while you work through logistics, budget and planning timelines together, so all parties leave aligned; the drawn concept is yours to keep.
Schedule a Feasibility Session