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CRUSH Architecture Powered by Curiosity, Inspired by History, We Create Sustainable Multigenerational Spaces.

Tom's cottage in Zetland is the project we call Mind The Gap.His review arrived last week."We engaged Carlo of Crush Arc...
18/10/2026

Tom's cottage in Zetland is the project we call Mind The Gap.
His review arrived last week.

"We engaged Carlo of Crush Architecture on our project to add to, and
reconfigure a small, heritage listed workers cottage in Zetland. We are
so pleased we did. Carlo is careful and focussed in listening closely
to what we wanted, meticulous in explaining what he will do, and by
when...and then doing it. His approach to design is carefully to
protect the heritage while creating high quality living spaces that are
as efficient as the heritage will allow. Carlo and his team have been a
delight to work with, and their engagement with the local council was
so skilful, careful and patient....steering our application through to
a successful outcome."

Thank you Tom. If your heritage home needs the same steering, a Project
Analysis is where we start. Link in bio.

Heritage asked for grey. We made the case for red.Mind The Gap is a heritage listed home in Zetland. Our client wanted t...
15/10/2026

Heritage asked for grey. We made the case for red.

Mind The Gap is a heritage listed home in Zetland. Our client wanted the new extension in bold red, with brick running through the walls and the paving.

The Development Application went in. The Heritage Council was happy with the proposal, with one exception. They asked for the extension in grey.

Grey would have been the quick way to an approval. It was not what our client wanted, and we did not think it was what the street needed either.

So we did not change the colour. We showed why it sits well with the houses around it.

Heritage agreed. The red stays.

We do not preserve heritage. We protect it, and we make it joyful to live in.

Thinking about a heritage home? Start with the Design Workbook. Link in bio.

Nobody ruins a renovation on purpose. It happens one reasonable decision at a time.A drawing meets a real wall that isn'...
15/10/2026

Nobody ruins a renovation on purpose. It happens one reasonable decision at a time.

A drawing meets a real wall that isn't where the survey said.

The door moves. Reasonable.

A tile goes out of stock. The closest match goes in. Reasonable.

A variation lands. It's Friday, the trades are waiting, so it's approved. Reasonable.

Four hundred of those between the first day on site and the last. Every one decided by whoever's standing there. Good people, none of them paid to protect the design you fell in love with.

That's what an architect does during construction. Not the drawings but the four hundred decisions after them.

About to build? Ask who's in the room for those. Link in bio.

"You guys save marriages, not just design homes."A client said that to me and I haven't stopped thinking about it.They c...
11/10/2026

"You guys save marriages, not just design homes."

A client said that to me and I haven't stopped thinking about it.

They came in ready to sell. Right suburb, right street, right neighbours. The house just felt too small.

We didn't draw anything. We asked how they live. Which room they drift to at six. Which one makes them tense. How four people find each other across a day.

The answer was in the plan. Their living rooms were at opposite ends of the house with the bedrooms in between. They weren't short of space. They were separated by it.

Most families who think they've outgrown their house haven't. They've outgrown the way it's arranged.

About to sell because it feels small? Five minutes with the Design Workbook first. Link in bio.

For nearly fifty years, a 1980 add-on has been protected by a heritage listing it did nothing to earn.The house it’s bol...
07/10/2026

For nearly fifty years, a 1980 add-on has been protected by a heritage listing it did nothing to earn.

The house it’s bolted to is on the NSW State Heritage Register, the strictest listing a family home can carry. And we’ve proposed taking the add-on off.

It’s a bad extension wearing an old house as a disguise. It contributes nothing to what makes the place significant. It just happens to be standing next to something that does.

Heritage doesn’t protect what’s old. It protects what’s significant. Knowing the difference is the entire job.
Keeping everything isn’t conservation. It’s hoarding with a permit.

In its place, we’re proposing an internal courtyard, similar to the one that existed before the 1980s changes, where the kids can run and the parents can breathe.
Alongside it, a two-storey extension with a rooftop terrace would finally give the house back the harbour view it lost decades ago, following the early-century subdivision.

Clearly contemporary. No fake heritage detailing. No pretending it was always there.
If someone’s told you your heritage home can’t change, they’ve told you what they don’t know.

Link in bio.

There was a treasure under this house and nobody had noticed it.Not the owners. Not the six families on the same street ...
05/10/2026

There was a treasure under this house and nobody had noticed it.

Not the owners. Not the six families on the same street who'd all applied for a second storey and all been refused.

Our clients wanted to be the seventh. We told them a seventh application wasn't a strategy, but a donation to council.

So we asked a different question. What is the house sitting on? A metre of empty air under the floorboards, doing nothing.

We dropped the floor into it. That bought the height for a mezzanine, entirely inside the existing roofline. Not one brick above the ridge. From the street, nothing changes.

The family gets their space, for less than a second storey.

The neighbours keep their skyline.

Your house is probably holding something back too. It's just never where you're looking.

The most expensive sentence in Sydney renovating: "We're not heritage listed, so we're fine."A semi in a conservation ar...
01/10/2026

The most expensive sentence in Sydney renovating: "We're not heritage listed, so we're fine."

A semi in a conservation area, not listed, refused twice for a rear extension. A heritage listed home a few streets away, approved for a full two-storey one.

Not listed does not mean not protected. A listing protects your building.

A conservation area protects your street. And the street is often the stricter of the two.

Two refusals is a year of your life and a redesign you're paying for twice.

Which one are you in? The Design Workbook tells you in five minutes. Link in bio.

If it comes back with the word heritage, talk to us before you pay anyone to draw a single line. Fifteen minutes now is cheaper than a refusal later.

The thing families worry about most before a heritage renovation is getting something wrong. Council. Character. Budget....
23/09/2026

The thing families worry about most before a heritage renovation is getting something wrong. Council. Character. Budget. All of it.

Here is what almost nobody tells them.

Everything that makes a heritage home healthy, the warmth, the air quality, the control of moisture, lives in the parts of the building that heritage guidelines protect least.

The rear. The roof. The internal structure.

The street facade stays intact. The original character is preserved. The performance work happens behind it.

Knowing where the real constraints are, and where the real freedom is, changes how you plan from the very beginning.

Our Design Workbook helps you ask the right questions before committing to anything:

crush-design-workbook.netlify.app

The question that stumped me at our Passivhaus night.Last week we filled Papaya Clinic in Newtown, one of our own past p...
16/09/2026

The question that stumped me at our Passivhaus night.

Last week we filled Papaya Clinic in Newtown, one of our own past projects, for the Australian Passivhaus Association Pecha Kucha night. Homeowners, builders, architects, a few people who had never heard the word Passivhaus before they walked in. Good questions all night. Then one that took me a second.

"What frustrates you about the design and construction industry in Sydney?"

Here is the honest answer. Part of the industry still thinks luxury is an expensive finish. The stone benchtop, the brass tapware, the imported joinery. That is where the conversation starts, and too often where it stops.

A Passivhaus home gives you something priceless before any of that. Fresh filtered air in every room. A temperature that holds through a Sydney winter and a Sydney summer. No mould, no condensation, no draughts, and a fraction of the energy bill. A home that does not make your children sick.

So first we make sure your heritage home is healthy for your family. Then we make sure you love it with your eyes too. That is the order.

Thank you to everyone who came, to the APA team for the invitation, and to for the room. If you missed it, our free Design Workbook covers the five things to check in your own home first. Link in bio.

Crush Architecture + Interiors. Heritage and Passivhaus, Surry Hills, Sydney.

"Passivhaus is for cold climates. It makes no sense in Sydney."I hear this often, including from people in the professio...
16/09/2026

"Passivhaus is for cold climates. It makes no sense in Sydney."

I hear this often, including from people in the profession. It is worth clearing up.

Passivhaus is designed for extreme conditions at both ends of the range, cold winters and hot summers alike. In Sydney, that means homes that stay comfortable year round without air conditioning and heating doing all the work.

It also means controlled humidity. In our climate that matters as much as temperature, because humidity is what feeds the mould and damp that older homes struggle with.

For a heritage terrace that lets cold air through every gap in winter and traps damp air all summer, the improvement is not marginal. It changes how the house feels to live in.

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Reservoir
Surry Hills, NSW
2010

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