Structure studio Workplace Alex Nicholls has fused two penthouse residences in Melbourne into one massive versatile residence, changing their basement parking spots into a personal spa and pool.
Adaptability was key to the house in Melbourne’s Elsternwick suburb, which wanted to supply sufficient area for a multi-generational household in addition to accommodating visiting kin in visitor rooms that double up as research.
“Areas had been designed to adapt to a large number of makes use of, with versatile working and residing areas in addition to areas that might broaden for big teams or contract to supply intimate settings,” the studio’s founder Alex Nicholls informed Dezeen.
Workplace Alex Nicholls was introduced on board whereas the condo block was nonetheless beneath development and was capable of make vital adjustments to go well with his shoppers’ wants – enhancing the format, including skylights and up-speccing on key particulars just like the home windows.
“The design intent was to create selection and totally different spatial experiences throughout a really expansive and doubtlessly monotonous floorplan,” Nicholls mentioned.
“I wished to create a light-weight but grounded and natural-feeling area that was contrasted with some stronger formal parts corresponding to sculptural skylights and colored practical volumes.”
To navigate this huge condo, Nicholls devised a central “library backbone” – a hall working your complete size of the condo that homes the household’s assortment of books, artwork and artefacts whereas creating a possibility out of what may have been a darkish and monotonous area.
“The thought for the library backbone was born from a storage requirement of the shoppers,” the architect mentioned. “Nonetheless, it turned a key architectural intervention.”
“From a sensible standpoint, it allowed every part to be simply accessible and displayed nevertheless it additionally helps to attract folks by the condo and have a good time the 2 staircases to the roof backyard at both finish.”
To supply important gentle to the guts of the condo and improve the 2 most important residing areas, Nicholls designed a sequence of round and semi-circular oculus skylights, which reference the shoppers’ love of Elsternwick’s artwork deco structure.
“They create a way of motion and symmetry within the composition of in any other case rectilinear volumes,” he defined.
The condo has three kitchens, partly to satisfy the household’s spiritual necessities and partly to permit the totally different generations who’re sharing the condo to take pleasure in their very own independence.
Described by Nicholls as a sequence of “magic packing containers”, every monolithic kitchen is outlined by one vivid color. This helps to delineate areas and gives a counterpoint to the in any other case heat and pure materials palette, which incorporates Blackbutt timber and Gosford sandstone.
“The kitchens had been designed to be largely hid inside these colored volumes to provide every yet one more spatial presence whereas making certain the condo didn’t really feel too kitchen- and appliance-heavy because of the shoppers’ complicated necessities,” Nicholls mentioned.
Within the basement, Nicholls turned the penthouses’ lift-accessed parking spots into a personal 100-square-metre wellness area that contains a health pool, sauna, kitchenette, altering rooms and a versatile rehabilitation space.
To make up for the dearth of pure gentle on this subterranean area, Nicholls deployed atmospheric oblique lighting and a heat color palette.
“Lighting the area by way of a datum of timber niches helped give the spa a restorative ambiance, enhanced by means of pure supplies corresponding to sandstone, timber, terracotta and lime render,” he defined.
Elsternwick is a thriving suburb within the southeast of Melbourne, brimming with buzzy outlets, eating places and bars.
Amongst them is the Hunter & Co Deli, whose interiors had been knowledgeable by the chilly cuts on supply, and the minimal Penta cafe with its monolithic concrete counter.
The pictures is by Rory Gardiner.
