Australian for Presevation

photo courtesy of core77.com

This is absolutely brilliant. The owners of a small cottage in Melbourne wanted to demolish their dilapidated building, but it was located in a heritage zone which didn't allow for the facade of the house to change. Melbourne-based architectJackson Clements Burrows responded by replacing the cottage with a new house that sits behind a superimposed 1:1 scale photo of the original dwelling overlayed on a glass facade. The ironic solution in theory preserved the aesthetics of the streetscape and, surprisingly, met with heritage control's requirements!

According to squee-gee's post on Core77:

...the tree in the background lines up perfectly with the photo when you stand in the right spot, the neighbors fence works from any angle like a renaissance portrait where the eyes follow you around the room and the unexpected choice of glass actually helps to diminish the physical presence of the building reflecting the sky and surrounding street scape.

Photo of the back of the house.