Top Architect Reveals the Secrets to Renovating Heritage Terraces
Award-winning architect Georgina Wilson on preserving history while creating homes that work for modern life.
4 min
Renovating a heritage-listed terrace is one of the most rewarding yet complex design challenges a homeowner can undertake.
With compact footprints, strict council regulations and the need to balance character with contemporary comfort, these projects demand a thoughtful and confident approach.
Architect Georgina Wilson, known for her award-winning work across some of Australia’s most admired homes, shares her expert insights into transforming these historic properties into highly functional and beautiful modern residences. With years of experience navigating heritage overlays and working within tight constraints, she approaches each terrace project as a carefully considered puzzle.
“Terrace homes are like puzzles. There is a best answer. If you don’t get the floor plan right from the beginning, you can easily end up with a dark, frustrating corridor of a house,” says Wilson.
Her strategy typically involves retaining the original rooms at the front of the terrace and rebuilding the rear. Many terraces include low-quality additions from past decades that can be replaced with a well-designed, two-storey structure.
This creates the opportunity for a large, open-plan kitchen, living, and dining space that connects directly to the rear courtyard, while maintaining the charm and street presence of the original façade.
Wilson warns that homeowners are often surprised by the limitations that come with heritage renovation. Restrictions can cover everything from paint colours and materials to staircases that cannot be altered. Even additions like dormer windows are subject to detailed approvals and strict visual guidelines.
One of the most valuable tools in making a terrace feel light, spacious, and connected is creating a central courtyard. When done well, it can bring natural light and ventilation into the heart of the home.
“The key is to design it properly. I see too many courtyards that become wasted space, with laundries and utilities blocking the light from reaching the living areas,” she says.
For homeowners seeking to enhance both livability and long-term value, Wilson recommends incorporating smart and practical features. These include up to four bedrooms, a bathroom on every level, two living spaces, a proper laundry, storage, off-street parking and a flexible courtyard for alfresco living and dining.
“Heritage renovations can be incredibly rewarding. With the right design approach, you can create a home that is full of character and perfectly suited to modern living,” says Wilson.
Q&A WITH GEORGINA WILSON
What are the most common challenges homeowners face when renovating heritage-listed terraces, and how can they prepare for them?
Terrace houses often have a very compact footprint, so getting it right is absolutely critical. I actually think it’s one of the hardest design challenges you can take on. There is a best answer, and it’s almost mathematical.
If you don’t get it right, the house is incredibly unforgiving. You can easily end up with a long, dark corridor of a home that’s frustrating to live in.
Preparation really starts with good spatial planning and being honest about what the home needs to deliver for everyday life.
How do you balance maintaining the historical integrity of a heritage home while incorporating contemporary elements and modern comforts?
My approach is usually to retain and restore the original front rooms of the terrace so they become a strong example of what a period terrace can be.
The rear of the home, more often than not, is comprised of low-quality add-ons, such as outdated kitchens and bathrooms that were added over time. That presents a great opportunity to rebuild with intention.
I often recommend containing the new build to one clean two-storey box at the rear.
This reduces integration issues and gives you a new structure that works really well.
The key is to make sure the new addition doesn’t feel alien or out of place. It should sit comfortably beside the old. Not cold, not clinical, and definitely not like it landed from outer space.
Are there any surprising heritage restrictions or council regulations that catch renovators off guard?
Absolutely. There are always unexpected restrictions around colour palettes and materials. Sometimes you’re not even allowed to change the original staircase. Dormers can be another tricky one, whether or not you’re permitted to have one and if you are, what it’s allowed to look like.
Heritage renovations are full of these kinds of surprises, so it’s really important to go in with patience and a solid understanding of local planning controls.
What design considerations are key to ensuring heritage terraces feel light, spacious and functional for modern living?
A really strong floor plan is everything. You want to make sure your key living spaces get the maximum amount of natural light and ventilation.
A central courtyard can be an amazing strategy to help with that, but only if it’s done well.
I see a lot of courtyards or lightwells that are completely wasted. They’re surrounded by laundries and utility rooms that block the light and airflow. If you’re going to invest in a courtyard, make sure it actually benefits the parts of the house you live in the most.
In your experience, what renovation choices tend to add the most long-term value to heritage homes in terms of lifestyle and resale?
The most valuable renovations are the ones that support modern family living. That usually means four good bedrooms, bathrooms on every level, a proper laundry and two living zones if you can manage it.
Car parking is always a big one, as is a flexible courtyard space for alfresco dining and entertaining. And don’t forget about storage. These aren’t just wishlist items.
They’re the things that make a house feel great to live in and really boost resale value down the track.
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Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
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