Fed up with all the "McMansions" springing up along Australia's Great Ocean Road, Austin Maynard Architects has restored an old beach shack and built a second, elevated building alongside it.
The brief was to give the clients ? a young couple ? a bigger home, with views of the the ocean. But the couple also wanted to protect some of the area's architectural heritage, by preserving their historic beach shack.

The solution developed by Melbourne-based architects Andrew Maynard and Mark Austin was to completely restore the old cabin, and then construct a new building that hovers over its roof.

"Our challenge was to avoid doing what some neighbours, and many other people along the coast, have done," they explained.
"We refused to have yet another Great Ocean Road shack sacrificed and replaced with a McMansion."
"We do our best to avoid the simple temptation of demolishing and replacing," they said.
"Where extensions are required/desired, we aim to retain and respect the existing shack and its scale."

The Dorman House extension has a similar footprint to the original property, but it comprises two storeys to ensure it offers the best view available.
Unlike the modest cabin, with its monochrome-painted weatherboard exterior, the new building is made up of an assortment of contemporary materials, including large glazing panels, translucent polycarbonate plastic and richly toned ash wood.

A criss-crossing cypress timber framewo...