What to do when your art collection starts outgrowing your house, and you want the public to be able to enjoy it as much as you do? Melbourne architect Corbett Lyon and his family were facing that quandary in 2000, and decided that the solution was to build a new place that was big enough to accommodate both the Lyon Collection of contemporary art and the Lyon Family too. They picked a plot eight kilometres from central Melbourne in the suburb of Kew, and set about creating Lyon Housemuseum.

It wasn’t just a case of upsizing the family home; as public spirited as the project was, it’s not ideal to have an endless stream of complete strangers wandering through the lounge while the footy is on. Instead, Lyon Architects designed a property with two main exhibition space cubes at either end of the house, around which the living accommodation was arranged – although even in the family’s areas there is still artwork and exhibits and the boundaries between public and private are challengingly blurry. Lyon Housemuseum is open for visitors by appointment and on designated visiting days throughout the year.