The Corner Store restores a 19th century Sydney shop house into a contemporary home

Located in Sydney’s Surry Hills, The Corner Store transforms a former 19th century public house into a contemporary family residence while carefully preserving traces of its layered urban history. Originally constructed in 1869 as The Moore Park Hotel, the building later evolved into a fruit and vegetable shop with upper level accommodation before operating for decades as a neighborhood corner grocery store until 2022.

The project reworks the three storey structure into a single three bedroom home, balancing heritage preservation with contemporary intervention. Positioned within a Heritage Conservation Area, the renovation responds to local planning requirements that all new additions remain visually distinct from the original fabric.

Before construction could begin, the building required urgent structural stabilisation. The original brick façade had separated from the internal cross walls and leaned dramatically toward the street. A carefully inserted steel portal frame was introduced to stabilise the structure prior to demolition works.

Later additions from the 1960s and 1970s were removed from the rear of the site, allowing the original proportions of the building to re-emerge. Aluminium windows and shopfronts added during previous renovations were stripped away, replaced with new timber framed elements informed by surviving original details. An existing double hung timber window and pair of shutters were retained and used as templates for the restoration throughout the project.

At the rear, a new three storey steel framed addition introduces a distinctly contemporary architectural language. Clad entirely in translucent glass blocks, the extension contrasts with the solidity of the original masonry building while maintaining a restrained material palette.

Set slightly back from the historic facade, the addition creates a deliberate separation between old and new. The translucent envelope diffuses daylight deep into the interiors while giving the extension a soft luminous presence from the street and surrounding laneways.

To improve natural light and ventilation, an internal courtyard was carved through the centre of the original building.

A new steel and timber staircase rises alongside the courtyard, connecting the living spaces below with upper level bedrooms and a roof terrace concealed behind the retained parapet.

The interiors balance warmth and restraint through a concise material palette. Oak flooring runs across the upper levels, while terrazzo tiles define the lower living spaces, terraces, and bathrooms. Oak veneer joinery introduces texture within the kitchen, while colour backed glass surfaces bring reflective depth to the bathrooms.

Environmental performance was central to the project’s approach. Rather than relying on conventional air conditioning, the house operates through passive environmental strategies including natural cross ventilation, ceiling fans, insulated walls and roofing, and carefully shaded openings. Solar panels, electric heat pump hot water systems, LED lighting, fully electric appliances, and hydronic underfloor heating further reduce the home’s operational footprint.

The result is a careful architectural transformation that allows a former corner shop to move into a new domestic life while retaining the memory of its changing role within the streetscape of Surry Hills.

Project Credit

Project name: The Corner Store
Location: Sydney, Australia
Design Firm: Ian Moore Architects / @ianmoorearchitects
Completion Year: 2025
Photo: Clinton Weaver / @_clintonweaver, Nick Bowers / @nickbowersphoto
Stylist: Tess Strelein