Shelving as a design opportunity

Shelving can be an excellent feature in any home, not only for its practicality but also for its aesthetic appeal. Here are some tips on how to use shelving as a feature in your home:

1. Create a focal point: Use shelving to create a focal point in your living room, bedroom or any other room in your home. You can achieve this by arranging your items to draw the eye towards the shelves. Consider using items of different heights and sizes, such as books, photo frames, and decorative objects, to create a visually appealing display.

2. Use shelving to divide spaces: Shelving can be a great way to divide up a large room or open-plan living space. You can use shelving units to create zones for different activities while maintaining an open feel. For example, you can use a large bookshelf to divide your living room from your dining area.

3. Use shelving to add storage: Shelving is an excellent way to add storage to any room in your home, from the kitchen to the bedroom. You can use shelving to store items you want to keep on display, such as your favourite books or decorative objects, or to store items you want to keep hidden away, such as clothing or kitchen appliances.

4. Use shelving to add colour: Shelving can be a great way to add a pop of colour to your home. You can paint your shelves brightly or use colourful storage boxes and baskets to add interest to your shelving display.

5. Use shelving to display collections: If you have a collection of items, such as vintage cameras or figurines, consider using shelving to display them. This showcases your collection and adds visual interest to your home.

6. Use shelving to add texture: Shelving can be a great way to add texture to your home decor. Consider using natural materials, such as wood or rattan, for your shelving units to add warmth and texture to your space.

In summary, shelving can be a versatile and practical in any home. Whether you use it to create a focal point, add storage, or display your collections, there are endless possibilities for incorporating shelving into your home decor.

My Award Entry Into The Victorian Architecture Awards

Here is the presentation I gave last month for the Victorian Architecture awards

A 7 minute presentation of a home I designed for the Victorian Architecture Awards.

A renovation to an existing clinker brick house with a contemporary two storey extension. The owners engaged a builder but also sought to undertake much of the construction works themselves in order to keep costs a low as possible. The architect was not engaged to administer the build.

Simplicity of the design and its construction technology and identifying simple strong gestures that would make the design unique were of paramount importance. The entirety of the existing dwelling was retained. It was stripped back to its structure, underpinned, rewired, re-plumbed, and had all its internal surfaces and windows replaced. The new extension attaches cleanly onto the back of the house allowing the couple to reside in the front part of the dwelling whilst the back was being constructed.

The form and shape of the extension and the construction technology of the design was kept as simple as possible so that as few trades as possible were needed to complete the base building. The concrete slab was polished for its beauty, resilience and cost effectiveness. The steel and timber frame is clad in color bond siding with some rendered cement sheet. The zinc alum flat roof provides a platform for solar panels and is easily accessed via a roof hatch with a built in ladder. The staircase was designed to be fabricated by the projects steel fabricator. Its detailing and utilitarian simplicity create a striking center to the house. Its open structure filters light and permits views from one end of the house to the other.

Long slot windows on the eastern and western facades, skylights over the staircase, bathroom light shafts, and hallway slot windows filter natural light into the all areas of the house in different ways and provide outlooks and vistas that extend the interior spaces outside. The ground floor extension is open connecting the inside of the house with its back yard.

A large open kitchen with a butler’s pantry connects the built in dining area with the family room. The joinery was kept simple and designed so that prefabricated systems could be used and installed by the owners. In addition to repurposing as much of the existing dwelling as possible, solar panels on the roof, electric hydronic heating, double glazing and upgrading of all insulation further enhance the energy efficiency of the home.

The first floor was designed with a dramatic curved cantilevered wall at the back of the house. The shape of the façade generated from an analysis of overlooking. By angling the windows inward into a V shape and blending the apex with a curve overlooking into the neighbors yards is prevented. This further allows for full height glass windows to look down onto the backyard and into the tree tops without screening. Standing in front of this window one gets the sense of floating.

Throughout the day this sculptural glass façade reflects its surrounding trees. At night from within the curved glass reflects its interior back into itself creating distortions akin to abstract compositions.

The Australian Institute of Architects Presentation to Juries offered entrants in the 2023 Victorian Architecture Awards an opportunity to address judges with their nominated projects. Featuring some of Australia’s most prominent architects, Presentation to Juries is a rare opportunity for the public to learn about the influences behind some of Victoria’s most innovative buildings and follow the architectural process from concept to construction.https://www.architecture.com.au/archives/awards/neville-street-mark-macinnis-architect

See the other entrants here

The importance of light in a design

We all know it when we feel it but it is sometimes hard to put our finger on it. Light. That warm glow in a kitchen, the drama of a hallway pendant or the soft ambient light from a lamp in a study. Getting lighting right is a real art and something that is not a consideration of the design of your home until the very last minute.

When designing a restaurant creating a vibe or feeling adds to the overall experience of that space and so why should our homes be any different? The answer is they shouldn’t be but lighting is often forgotten till the end of a project.

A good way to think about light and lighting design is how you want to feel in the space. How will you be using it. I think it is always preferable to use natural light where you can and understand the orientation of your design to capture this. Simple elements like window orientation, skylights and doors with glass panels can make such a difference to the light in your home.

There are also spaces in your home where you might want low or moody light. For example the bedroom or study. Choice of drapes, paint choice and lighting all come into play to create that moody atmosphere.

Lighting has changed significantly in the past few years with more options for both inside and outside the home. From strip lighting, solar and more. You only have to go into a lighting shop to see the range of options and it is easy to become overwhelmed. So think about the space and feeling you want to create in each room and the overall space and start from that place. It will help you make better lighting decisions.

Read also: Picking the right light.

Colours for 2023 according to Architectural Digest

There are nine colours or hues, according to Architectural Digest that is trending for 2023.

1. Terra Rosa - earthy tones, pairing rich terra-cotta with a dusty rose. Part of the brand’s Life in Poetry palette, the colour more than holds its own as a dominant ground, while its muted shade makes it a tasteful, timeless accent to almost any colour palette.

2. Vining Ivy - subtle transition away from the neutral-ish greens that defined 2022, Vining Ivy successfully straddles the line between green and blue by incorporating jewel-like elements.

3. Blank Canvas - neutral, monochrome calm as seen in trending organic modern interiors. Despite the implications of its name, Blank Canvas is more than capable of standing on its own by offering a playful, warmer take on traditional white.

4. Redend Point -sits at the centre of the neutral spectrum and the emerging trend towards energising earth tones that play well with other neutrals.

5.Raspberry Blush -Warm and vivid, it’s designed to create an instant impression in both big or small doses, adding a touch of excitement and happiness to any space.

By Annie Hall Interiors - Boston

6. Alizarin -Deep but effervescent red shades are popular in brands’ Color of the Year 2023 selections. A rich, stirring auburn hue

7. Amber - draws on the influence of its namesake gemstone to replace the negative energy of the pandemic years with soothing positivity. The honeycomb in colour.

By Design Lines

8. Viva Magenta -A berry red that blurs the lines between warm and cool, Viva Magenta is the bold color that is turning heads on the runway and turning up in the metaverse.

Atherton Residence

9. Breezeway - A silvery green suitable for everything from beachside vibes to modern, contemporary settings, perfectly viable neutral for those ready to brighten a space by bringing the outdoors in.

Traditional living room

The modular home - built within eight minutes!

It is called the Ubox, and it can be expanded in eight minutes. Ten Fold Engineering, a UK-based company, has built an expandable-house prototype. The unit can be trucked to any location and set up in minutes.

When compressed, the building can be transported by truck. After you set it up in your preferred location, the building expands like an accordion, using a counterbalance system to grow roughly three times its original size. Ten Fold Engineering says its self-deploying building can also be used for medical clinics, stores, or office space. And it’s yours to unfold for about 130,000 pounds or around $500k AUS.

Here are some we found to find a similar modular builder in Australia.

PreBuilt

Anchor Homes - they have a great pdf - All you need to know about building a modular home.

Hampton a family renovation

I thought I would profile the Hampton lookbook on this blog. This home was done several years ago now and just sold for well over $3.4 million dollars.

Working with the own owners on this project was really rewarding. This was a family home in Hampton that needed a big face lift and extension. The clients were very open to my ideas and together we created a beautiful family home that they have enjoyed for many years.

Modern Kitchen. It had it’s own seperate butters pantry.

Here is the recent advertisement for the home in Real Estate.com.au

Design for Hampton Home

Green living walls

Bringing the outside in has been a feature of the Australian housing market for some time. We like to be surrounding by nature and our climate means that we can have big open spaces that face our open spaces like our gardens. However now I have noticed the trend to make living green walls part of the architecture of the home. Living green walls have become a feature that many home lovers are getting on board with.

What use to be confined to a commercial use in foyers and window dressings are now making their way into our homes.They’ve recently become some of the most striking and important eco-friendly features in buildings across the world.

When vertical gardens are used on the interiors of buildings, they can help improve air quality not only because plants naturally remove carbon dioxide and produce oxygen-rich air, but also because plants can filter the air around them by absorbing and cleaning pollutants. When they’re used inside, living green walls frequently act as a three-dimensional, living piece of artwork, providing an aesthetic component as well as a health element.

Where there isn’t the inclination to look after a living green wall some have opted for a mural or wallpaper which gives the illusion of a green space as a backdrop to a room.

My wife is a big advocate of garden and green spaces and so I am encouraged to think more about green spaces when designing homes, especially in tight spaces where a touch of green can really make the space come to life.

Changing spaces - the affect of COVID on living and working from home

With over 13 million of us in lockdown currently, we are really getting to know our homes well. We are also finding limitations around creating spaces to do work, places to home school and places just to get a space to peace. There is no doubt how we use our homes is changing and I look at some of the ways we can be creative in the short term and projects in the longer term. Just as the Spanish flu gave us the vanity room, which originated as a hand-washing basin immediately inside the front entrance of a home, COVID-19 will influence innovation in home design.

Open Plan - not working during COVID?

Where people choose to live and how they want their houses to function may change after this prolonged period of lockdown. It’s likely that for many families, this period has also highlighted that when they are all in the house at the same time, it can be hard to find any personal space.

Home office - makeshift corner

A popular trend in recent years has been for open plan living. Open-plan, ever-larger houses have ruled the market for decades, even though the family size has shrunk and middle-class real earnings have remained flat. This often involves opening up several ground floor rooms to create a single, open-plan, multi-functional space – usually a kitchen, dining, living, utility and workspace. These open-plan areas usually function on the premise that any homeworking parents can occupy this space during the day before the family comes together to socialise in it in the evening. 

This, however, relies on a “phased” pattern of occupation, whereby different members of the household occupy the home at different times of the day. This is very different from the “concurrent” pattern of occupation – whereby all members of the household occupy the home simultaneously – that lockdown has made more prevalent. Home-based jobs call for better home offices. A larger home-based workforce will drive designers to balance job requirements with the privacy and safety of the family.

Being able to supervise children while working may be beneficial for some. But for others, the lack of privacy afforded by these large, open plan spaces has no doubt presented challenges. Particularly when, for example, you might want a quiet corner in which to hold online calls. Self-isolating is also more difficult in such spaces, as is quarantining objects coming into the home.

Pandemic thinking will likely favour less-open spaces (though people will crave nature-positive spaces), perhaps reviving cosy dens to supplement living rooms. Spending may shift into less obvious enhancements of safety and comfort. Better interior insulation will enable quieter places.

Change in requirements
It is likely that changes in commuting or work habits could also prompt a fundamental shift in what people perceive as priority features in the home. 

People who regularly work from home use their heating far more to maintain a comfortable working environment. So an increase in the number of homeworkers could see a wider preoccupation with thermal comfort and the energy efficiency of their homes. Homeworking could now bring more considerations around:

• WorkSpace - More attention will be given to the arrangement of the workplace at home. The spatial organisation will change, with the place to work at home no longer a desk with a parody of an office chair and a lamp, slotted somewhere in the corner of the living room or under the stairs. Now it will be a completely separate room with large windows, blackout curtains. we’ll want our new home offices to be light-filled, engaging spaces, not dark, windowless dens

• Noise

• VIsual outlook - access to nature

• Air Quality - Split HVAC systems can prevent sickroom air from being pumped into everybody’s space. Such mini-HVAC systems with no ductwork have become very affordable. Water and air filtration systems are now table stakes for new builds.

• Natural Light - will continue to grow as a trend, as will maximising opportunities for light and air to penetrate spaces and the preference for natural materials and textures

• Places to study

• Entrance -. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the entrance area will be separated so that we can leave our shoes, clothing and belongings on the street, rather than carry dirt into the living quarters.

• Self Sufficiency - Growing own food. The goal will be independence from the outside world, minimising risks in the case of a full shutdown.

• House not flat - after forced self-isolation on different floors above the ground, often without a balcony or terrace, we will all desperately want to have a house. It can be small, but with a courtyard and a terrace where you can have coffee in the morning.

• Hugh MacKay thinks the demand for high-tech antimicrobial materials will be “very strong”. There are reports of increasing interest in using chemical agents in surface coatings and treatments to fight the spread of bacteria, fungi and viruses. And Hugh predicts we may also see a resurgence of copper and brass (copper has natural antibacterial properties) for taps and door handles.

• Locally supplied Materials - locally sourced products preferred to imported options, due to vulnerabilities in the supply chain.

• Multigenerational living -As a result, we will likely see the rise of granny flats or self-contained suites within the home, with bedrooms, living spaces and bathrooms to accommodate older children or elderly relatives.

  Many will be rethinking the kind of life they want to live post-pandemic, along with the role their homes could play in this. When buying a home, subconsciously, people will be seeing any new space, in the midst of the pandemic, we quickly imagine what it would be like to be trapped there for months.

  Values ​​will change, our lives and habits will change, and our homes will also change under that influence.
  
  

Fall in love with your home, all over again.

How many of you love your home V like it. Falling in love with where you live is so important. We spend so much time in our homes, especially with COVID, it is a place that is our work office, and sometimes classroom for our kids.

Sometimes it is time to do a refresh to make our homes feel anew and so we can fall in love with it all over again. It might be giving it a new lease of life with a coat of paint, renovating a section or planting a garden.

A new piece of furniture can often change the way you use a room. If you are like my wife, moving pieces of furniture around from time to time can give you a new outlook and appreciation of a view or create a different mood.

Experimenting with new linen, towels in the bathroom or pillows can change the room without the big cost of renovating. We use warmer colours in our bedroom in the winter and cooler in the summer. Do you change your decor to suit the season or your mood?

It’s Valentine’s Day today and many people will be buying flowers and chocolates for those people they love. Maybe another idea is to create a room you really love by changing something about it. Maybe it is rearranging the furniture, adding some colour, or maybe it is time to create that room your love rather than like with a renovation?

Australia By Design Series for great inspirational ideas for your home.

It is a great show with lots of ideas. Worth watching on You Tube or Channel 10 Catch up. Hope to have my next project featured in 2021.

Also the final Australia by Design Interiors. Well worth a watch.

What is your design style?

When designing a new home or renovation, the clients that I work with are forced for the first time to really narrow down their design preferences. I have developed this simple quiz that might just assist you to determine your style preferences when designing your dream home.

So what is your design style? Are you a Minimalist, Hoho, Hamptons, Farm-house, Scandi or other?

Take the quiz and find out.