Stunning South Austin home showcases inspired design with bungalow expansion

The Hillside Residence is a Travis Heights home redesigned and remodeled by Austin’s much-lauded Alterstudio, which deployed its considerable creatively to create this distinctive to renovate a 1927 and expand it with a completely contemporary sensibility.

According to Alterstudio’s website, the design was inspired by Marcel Breuer’s 1943 proposition for a Bi-Nuclear House; it splits the home into separate zones, with one one for “living and socializing” and the other for “concentration, work and sleeping”—with a dialogue between the two happening in the entrance between the two.

The award-winning home, which now measures a total of 2,250 square feet and has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, is composed of a substantially renovated, 1,100-square-foot 1927 bungalow and a similarly sized contemporary space, clad in black-stained cypress, connected by a glass bridge that also serves as its entry point. The two linked spaces are clearly defined by different materials and spacial characteristics that, whatever their theoretical basis, combine into a stunning, graceful home.

The existing bungalow was renovated in a way that respects its character and the original’s discrete spaces—albeit rearranged, and with much of it painted a stark white.

The smaller, separate rooms in the older space contrast with but speak to the opened-up, airy, newer building.

A private backyard features a lap pool and lounging area.

• 1303-1/2 Hillside Avenue [Catherine Romano, Keller Williams Realty]