The newly created Lake Ward takes in neighbourhoods from Albert Park to St Kilda. As its residents, we live in everything from tiny cottages to giant high-rises, and in public housing, blocks of flats, Victorian terraces, stand-alone houses and historic mansions. Our architectural style is everything between the pre-goldrush shack to the futuristic tower.

Some heritage streets in our city are as pristine as a period film set. Others are an incredible mixture of old and new, and great and small - all in a chaotic and fascinating overlayering of history.

As inner city residents we must constantly, and cleverly adapt our contemporary lives to the historic fabric we love to live within. And as such we struggle with the question: how should we treat our heritage areas and heritage building? With the white cotton gloves of museum-grade preservation? Or more robustly, or playfully, as stuff we love to adapt and reuse?

The answer is obviously ‘horses for courses’. Some buildings (or landscapes) need to be treasured as absolute museum specimens, and treated with the highest standard of conservation care and aesthetic authenticity.

Others can be dealt with quite differently- handled with love and respect but allowed a lot more creative licence and leeway.

One example of that, which I happen to have been involved with, is the tiny, award -winning house recently completed in Albert Park. You may have seen it. The original house was an incredibly quaint, ramshackle two-storey timber worker’s cottage, on aminiscule triangular site in the middle of a prized heritage area. (Right at the very pointiest end - at the front! - was its tumbled down outdoor dunny.) It was a beloved local landmark, but sadly completely beyond salvage as a freestanding structure.

My partner is Fooi-Ling Khoo and her architectural practice is OOF! Architecture. I was her heritage consultant. Working with Council, we came up with a uniquely inventive solution - a modern contemporary family home that preserved 80% of the visible fabric of the cottage, now supported in place on a new sculptural structure. You can see, embedded in the building, the three dimensional presence of the cottage.

In doing so, we accentuated its landmark location and reinforced the heritage character of the area, while embracing an exciting contemporary element.

This is an eclectic city. Every section has a strong attachment to a geographical locality and to its own past. As an architect and heritage consultant who works through these sometimes-conflicting concerns, I am experienced in finding ways to reconcile our love for the past with an optimistic future as a vibrant contemporary city.

On Council we need a powerful advocate for beauty, and for history and heritage, as we face the future.

We must not let the future trample over our heritage. We must take what we value with us into that future.