With this project, we had an opportunity where we had clients that approached us with a brief
of a house that was not your typical crisp white box. They wanted something that was
highly emotive, highly textural, very vibrant as they are
and we had a great opportunity to able to explore some ideas of intensity in this project;
of highs and lows and getting different feels in spots and I think
at the end, it feels balanced but it does have a very unique distinct identity.
Very much early from the brief, we wanted something that was earthy, that was textural.
One of the main materials is the red terracotta toned brickwork and that's got a certain
saturation to it which is really exciting and then we're bringing elements of the raw concrete inside
and then we've got raw oak floors and we've got cedar toned veneers,
so it's very much about trying to balance these raw materials.
Even things like the paint that we've used in the project has a sand finish
in it. It's an earthy clay colour and creates something that is a little bit more intense.
We look to try and create these very strong elements. We've got this ribbon staircase
and then that flows through into the kitchen where we have these strong concrete form-like elements
that create the island bench. It creates a portion of a bench behind us with the sink
and then from there, we're creating these furniture pieces of almost cedar-like veneer
which soften the room. We also have to be mindful that we have got these hard finishes
of concrete and brickwork, so it gives us an opportunity to start to sort of temper that.
The site, it has a bit of fall across it, so it gave us the opportunity to
create a series of buildings that we could have little breaks in between. We can get pockets of
landscaping that come in. We can create some different levels of interest in the building.
We've got our roofline that extends and weaves and creates actual different zones.
We've got landscaping that comes in. We've got an outdoor entertaining area. We've got our living
room. We're always connected. I suppose what we've tried to do though, so it's not all even,
is create a sense of complexity. We might have sort of a lower compressed hallway and
then you come into say, this TV room that we have with a larger four metre soaring ceiling.
We thought there's this opportunity actually to play with light and darkness a little bit more.
We've integrated a series of custom light fittings. In tiled niches, in matching tiles
or in the brickwork walls, add another layer of complexity which the project can handle.
It was an appropriate need for this lush, almost tropical like landscaping.
So we worked with Myles Baldwin to work up these areas where we intently, very early on, created
pockets where we could have private gardens as well as these large expanses that come out
towards the rear of the property, to the pool and we knew that we wanted to have a flooring material
that was, you could say, classical, people understood it and that's why we looked at doing
what appears to be like a raw, narrow board, timber flooring and we'd worked with Storey before
on previous projects and we knew that they could deliver the particular look that we're after.
At Made by Storey, we love customisation and when B.E Architecture came to us, they wanted to use
natural timber but didn't want it to appear to be the common wider boards that are seen around
Australia. The colour used on this project was Sesame from our Tonal Collection. Sesame has a
very unique, raw oak appearance but with slight smoking; brings a little bit of warmth to it.
The slight wire brushing produces a really beautiful texture to the surface.
When the light hits it at the right time of day, it really evokes that rawness.
Traditionally our most common boards are 190mL in width. For this project we have reduced it to
just under half, at 85mL wide. The narrower profile on the boards works so well back with
the bricks that also have that narrow profile and we also extend the length to 2.2 meters.
The end result is a beautifully sleek and truly luxurious finish.
As with all homes, they should feel relaxing, they should be low maintenance, they shouldn't
feel precious in them. So it's not just design intent to have what we're saying are these raw
looking boards; there's actually practicality involved. The light dusty colour means it's low
maintenance to live with. Everything is customised in this project, everything is thought about.
I think the things that I am proud of, it's these little cameo views you get, these little layers
of detail in the project that sort of give it some more meat and bones. It's much more
evocative so I think it's probably the feeling that I get in this house that I'm most proud of.
I'm really proud of this project that we've created a truly bespoke product and the
fact that we also undertook the installation process. There were some significant challenges
in terms of stair detail and design and we couldn't be more excited about the outcome.
We really love pushing the boundaries as to what we can do with our materials,
which coincides with the architecture's design ethos. The design brief was to meet
a really European look but with a modern slant and I think that we've achieved that.
It's just great when everything exceeds expectation and over delivers in that way.