What makes Pettit+Sevitt homes so special — and how can they evolve for modern life?

More than 60 years on, these homes remain admired for their thoughtful planning, connection to landscape, passive design principles and distinctive mid-century character.

Renovating one is about more than updating an old house. It’s about understanding the original design, identifying what makes it special, and finding thoughtful ways to adapt it without losing its character.

Most architects, if fact, most people would like to find themselves taking part in a project to help underprivileged societies at least once in their lifetime, so when I was invited by another local architect to join them in taking part in a project run by a small Australian charity, ‘Books Over The Sea’, to build a new library for the school children of Vacalea Primary School in Fiji, I jumped at the opportunity...