[interview] the project story
Image Credit : Thomas Dalhoff
Project Overview
When a property became available on a sought after beach front in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, it was too much for the home owners to resist. It was then a matter of designing a house to meet the clients many requests, some of which seemed to be opposing.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Brett Mickan_Interior Designer (Brett Mickan Interior Design)
Stephen Swain_Architect (Tessellate A+D)
Scott Somerville_ Builder (One Up Builders)
Project Brief
The home needed to allow a family to live a casual beach lifestyle with a space ample enough for their large extended clan and flexible enough to easily adapt from day to day living to large scale entertaining. The home needed to provide spaces for the family to retreat to, but still be open enough to encourage family communal living. They wanted casual and unpretentious, but it also needed to be an impressive statement for business entertaining and ground the architecture in this prominent location. Being well travelled, they also wanted their home to have an international flair and a hotel style luxury that they were accustomed to.
Project Innovation/Need
The original concept design was created by Sydney based architects, Tzannes and seamlessly adapted by Melbourne based architect Steven Swain of Tessellate A+D. The 2 top floors were constructed in 10 modular pieces in Melbourne by a prefabrication builder. The interior specs were highly customised and installed in the Melbourne factory, including oak floors with hydronic under floor heating and bathrooms tiled floor to ceiling with limestone. The majority of the ground floor exterior was clad in sandstone that was sourced to compliment the existing sandstone in the area.
Natural materials, such as oak floors and limestone tiled bathrooms, were specified to soften the sharp lines for the architecture. The use of polished concrete at the entry helped to blend a modern structure with its natural surroundings.
Design Challenge
Despite being a large prominent location for this area, it was a lot of house to fit on this block. The home had to be a statement but be in keeping with the scale of the existing structures on the street. There was also a desire to reflect the natural environment surrounding this home, mostly the natural brush and the sandstone ledges of the foreshore. As with many projects, there were conflicting visions that we needed to accommodate. He wanted a casual beach shack where he could kick off his shoes and bask in the sea breeze, but she wanted a sophisticated,yet easy to care for home. The challenge was to get that simple, clean, beach aesthetic and then introducing key pieces of furniture and art to make the house feel impressive.
Sustainability
When designing an interior for a building of such prominence, I consider it vital to highlight and respect the architectural vision, while incorporating the desires of the clients. The collaborative process from inception of design, with client, architect, builders, landscapers and interior designer made this process a pleasure. My palette was informed by the natural tones of the sandstone, brush and ocean fronting the home. This
enabled the open plan living to spill seamlessly onto the exterior entertaining areas and beach front. A strong use of natural materials such as oak floors, wool and silk rugs and a simple sand hue for the walls, softened the interior but gives a gallery like feeling to allow the art, feature lighting and prominent furniture pieces to have a sense of importance. The majority of storage was customised and installed as part of the architecture making little visual noise and allowing the client to store the inevitable “family clutter”.
Interior Design - Residential
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes and aesthetic presentation. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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