The owners of this 1950s home in Lane Cove, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, loved its original features and location, but there was little room for their expanding family. Rather than moving to a larger house, the family engaged Those Architects to rebuild the extension (a previously poorly designed lean-to) to offer a better use of space, without expanding the overall footprint. This rebuild also provided the opportunity to open up the home to its formerly disjointed north-facing backyard.

Because of the property’s oddly shaped and sloping site, an innovative structure was required for the extension. Those Architects’ response was to devise a brick ‘tower’ spread across two levels, enabling room for an additional bedroom, city views, and a second play area, without impeding on outdoor space for a courtyard, pool and lawn. ‘We removed the lean-to and reoriented the entire house so that it hinged around a north-facing courtyard,’ explains Simon Addinall, director of Those Architects.

The backyard, including the pool area, is arranged in tiers to suit the site, creating a series of smaller break-out spaces. ‘We sculpted the sloping site using one wall of the new raised swimming pool’ Simon says. This transforms the courtyard into a sheltered, central place, where the living and kitchen area of the old house and the new rumpus room connect.

The original 1950’s home was retained in the renovation process, with only minor alterations made to the layout. A ‘Juliet’ balcony and curved bay window in the main bedroom were also restored. This original architecture was the inspiration for the property’s new elements. ‘We don’t seek to try and replicate what is there, rather, provide a modern addition that complements the original dwelling,’ Simon says. ‘In this case, brick is continued through the design and used as the dominant material, referencing the existing homes construction.’ This consistent use of brick also instils thermal mass properties, to facilitate passive heating and cooling in the home, thereby reducing energy consumption.

While the design principles employed by Those Architects in this project are measured and  timeless, a playful element is introduced in the use of colour, and creative use of space. The result is a home that both celebrates its past, and looks ahead to the future.

In a stroke of fate, I have known Charlotte Alldis for a long time. We went to primary and high school together, and crossed paths at uni. I bought a painting of hers two years ago, after seeing her art flourish and evolve via Instagram, and in one of my first weeks at The Design Files, our Managing Editor assigned me to this story.

In a way, my personal connection makes this harder to write. It makes the meaning of the work harder to know, somehow more slippery, as it mixes with my memories. What I do know for sure is that her twisted, freaky ladies are the last thing I see when I go to sleep and the first when I wake up. They hang beside my bed and look down on me like agnostic, artistic angels from their frame, reminiscent of the tangled complexity of the female bond and body. They are a constant source of eerie comfort and two dimensional company.

‘I’m asking for you to join me, to play with me, to laugh with me, to feel a little bit silly,’ the artist explains, and I immediately dismiss the insecurity that I can’t articulate as a clear objective through her work. Because it turns out that’s the point.

Charlotte isn’t just making art, she’s building a world. Her paintings are not about finding linear meanings and movements. Instead, her characters travel across paintings, like recurring dreams that populate a subconscious. They can be unnerving or comforting but most of all they’re a distinguished presence outside her personality. ‘Sometimes it can feel like there is a crowd with me while I paint,’ she laughs, describing the cartoonish, painted forms as facets of her own identity. ‘The characters are extensions of myself, and representations of feeling. Each character is an extension or aspect of my experiences,’ Charlotte explains, which makes her art deeply personal and subjective all at once.

It’s this experience of community that first drew Charlotte to visual art five years ago, and what sustains her evolving practice today. Her work is distinctive for its unexpected colour combinations, naive lines and crowded, impulsive compositions – all of which give credence to a sense of freedom, and uninhibited originality. It’s this flouting of formal art training and intentionality that makes her work so compelling.

Driving Charlotte’s most recent project, Making A Mess, is the shared desire for a space for communal art making. She began this as a public workshop series with two friends, with tickets opening  soon for the next quarter. ‘It’s founded on our shared interest in facilitating spaces for people to come together and explore mark-making, constructing and creative expression, all free of judgement,’ Charlotte explains. Letting others in on the therapeutic properties of playful art is her mission. ‘My art is deeply personal, but sharing it perpetuates playfulness and positivity for others.’

For Charlotte, art is about letting go of what you’re supposed to feel or think or like. It’s a rejection of a universal taste, and a turn inwards to listen to our subjectivity. It sounds spiritual and, in a way, it is. This kind of art exists as an anchor to all that feels chaotic and scrambled and overwhelming in the world, to enliven those negativities, and remind you they’re okay.

The 17th-century craft of straw marquetry is only practised by 25 artisans around the world. One of those is Arthur Seigneur and to his knowledge, he is the only one practising in Australia. It’s on the edge of becoming a lost art.

An art though, it definitely is.

He makes up one half of collaborative design duo A+A, alongside industrial designer Adam Goodrum. Their latest endeavour is an exhibition for Melbourne Design Week, for which the pair have created three pieces of incredible cabinetry decorated with straw marquetry by Arthur’s expert hand. Adam designed the credenza, tallboy and console, made from oak and white maple. Using just a scalpel, ruler and wood glue, Arthur has painstakingly covered the surface of each piece with more than 4,000 slivers of reflective rye straw, imported from Burgundy and hand-dyed in custom hues.

Adam and Arthur envisioned the colours and patterns together, resulting in a cascading kaleidoscopic design inspired by the concentric symmetry of a lotus blossom. The marquetry runs in contrasting directions and colours, giving each piece an intense dynamism, as well as subtle texture.

The exhibition takes its title from the surrealist French parlour game cadavre exquis (‘exquisite corpse’), where anonymous group sketches often resulted in disjointed and bizarre anatomical illustrations. Similarly unexpected collaborative outcomes are repeated in A+A’s process. ‘Neither of us would have come up with these works independently, but together we’ve created something new and distinctive,’ explains Adam.

You can see Exquisite Corpse at the National Gallery of Victoria during Melbourne Design Week from 12th – 22nd March.

Exquisite Corpse by A+A
March 12th-22nd
Tolarno Galleries
Level 4, 104 Exhibition StreetMelbourne
Melbourne, Victoria

Last year Hattie Molloy had three cubic metres of soil dumped in her previous studio in Collingwood, arranged in mountainous waves as part of an epic in-store display (she later planted seeds in the soil, creating a living, sprouting installation). This week she spent 19 hours straight installing a runway installation for David Jones at VAMFF, bright red bursts of 4000 roses and 4000 dahlias arranged down 30 metres of runway. For Hattie more than most people, there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary’ day. 

For one thing, Hattie’s alarm goes off at 2.35am two or three times a week to get to the flower market. ‘My work does not allow for much routine’, Hattie says. ‘I start my day with a cuppa and my skincare routine, but that’s about it’.

After having to vacate her previous space in Collingwood due to development, Hattie has only just put the finishing touches on her new studio, not far away on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. ‘I designed this space for myself’, she says. ‘I wanted a beautiful place to work and create out of, and to showcase my arrangements. While it won’t be open to the public, there will be pop-ups (like the one she hosted for Valentine’s day last month) and workshops.

We followed Hattie for a (relatively chill) day last week to see her new space, and learn more about her totally un-ordinary day-to-day!

FIRST THING

If it’s a market morning on Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes Saturday, my alarm goes off at 2.35am. I splash my face with cold water and get dressed.

If it’s a non-market morning I tend to wake up around 6.30ish, make a cuppa, and get ready for the day.

MORNING

I generally always have brekky out. Sometimes that means grabbing a pastry, or if I have time I love breakfast at Napier Quarter in Collingwood. I’ll catch up on emails and get a general plan for what I need to get done for the day.

After this, I head to the studio. My assistant Belle and I will start the day around 9am, prepping flowers and doing admin. My days vary so much depending on what jobs we have on! For instance, this week we’ve been working on David Jones runway show for VAMFF (4000 roses, 4000 dahlias, and 30 metres of runway!)

Earlier in the week, we’re installing our weekly arrangements to restaurants and stores all around Melbourne, then later in the week I’m usually working on an event or wedding.

LUNCHTIME

Lunch is usually quick and easy, like a local banh mi from down the road on Brunswick Street.

AFTERNOON

If I’ve been at the market I tend to fade by about 2pm and my brain turns to mush. You do get kind of used to just pushing through it though. I don’t drink coffee but I do love a cuppa, and that’s generally how I sustain my energy levels.

In the afternoon, if we have an event, we are out installing. Otherwise, we are in the studio working on quotes, new concepts or photographing arrangements.

I love that there is always a challenge. A new project to work on. New ideas to develop. And I love that I get to work with the seasonal flowers.

EVENING

I generally finish around 5-6ish, but depending on events it can also be up to 11pm. Quite often my friends will come by the shop for a knock-off – we love people watching on Brunswick Street. Otherwise, I tend to just go home, cook myself or friends a yummy dinner and watch some trashy TV!

LAST THING

I feel like I never truly ‘clock off’ even when I’m home, I’m generally working while I watch Netflix. I’ve learned to function on very little sleep. Some nights I get 3-4 hours if I’m going to market. Other nights I try to get 7-8.

Right now I’m listening to…

Erika de Casier, Summer Walker and Dua Lipa.

I also enjoy listening to ‘The Daily’ podcast by the New York Times on my way to market.

One important thing I do every day is…

Talk to my Mum.

I get my best work done when…

I’m just creating for myself. With no brief or restrictions.

A philosophy I live and work by is…

You must show people what you are capable of. Invest in yourself and your practice. And know your worth.

My productivity tip/tool is…

A deadline.

Something I learned the hard way is…

I’ve learned to keep a level head on jobs. Events can be stressful but it’s important to stay cool, calm and collected. Mistakes happen, but it’s how you recover from them that’s important.

Hattie Molloy
103 Brunswick st
Fitzroy
Vic 3065

Shop open by appointment only.

Tarragh Cunningham and Keith Burt’s home is in a rapidly densifying suburb of inner-city Brisbane, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at it. Even with a renovation that included a small addition to the rear, the traditional Queenslander remains burrowed in subtropical foliage and exhibits no signs of alteration from the facade. It’s only once you advance through the house that the floor plan opens up to reveal the alterations that make the whole place feel more expansive.

Architects Lachlan Nielsen and Morgan Jenkins (of Nielsen Jenkins) wanted to ‘maintain an appropriate sense of scale and volume within the old building’ while also catering to the client’s rapidly evolving needs. As the dwelling for a painter, two teenage sons and the assistant director of the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, naturally space was needed for a family, but also for an art collection and painting studio within its walls. Subtle adjustments to the original floorplan and structure of the house – such as closing in an old doorway to make a new hanging space for art, and using the old fig tree to plant footings for structural support – allowed for the bedrooms and studio downstairs to be separated from the main level living area in an economical fashion.

Keith was named as a finalist for the Archibald Prize twice over the course of the build, meaning the design for his studio had to shift to allow for small public showings before his major exhibitions. Coupled with the bedrooms for two growing children, there’s a poetry in the way the space has expanded and contracted over the years, with the changing requirements of the family. ‘It has been incredible to see how the house adapts easily to this more public function, and to see the way that people move through the work at these events and out under the tree for a drink in the garden,’ the architects describe.

Morgan and Lachlan drew on Carlo Scarpa’s restoration of Verona’s medieval castle, Castelvecchio, and Phorm Architecture + Design’s Whynot Street project in Queensland for inspiration when planning the renovation. This combination of medieval influence (!) and hyper localised architecture resulted in a cleverly fused domestic space that oscillates between public and private areas. Exposed raw materials such as concrete blockwork, an elevated concrete planter and unfinished timber were used for the extension, adding a modern edge to the traditional weatherboard exterior.

‘The light within the building changes dramatically over the course of the day, and the seasons,’ explain the architects. ‘The way the shadows of the fig tree interact with the order shadows of the structure is constantly changes and dynamic’ they explain, which brings another dimension of spatial complexity to this breezy, open house.  All in all, the result here is an exciting and beautiful family home, designed to be shared.

When the GFC hit in 2008, the temptation for a lot of businesses was to take their manufacturing offshore. For Vanessa Katsanevakis, the Creative Director of Sussex Tapware, this was not only an option she wasn’t interested in, but one that didn’t make much business sense.

‘I felt there was a growing group of consumers who were more interested in locally-made, sustainable homewares and that were in a position to pay a bit more for them,’ Vanessa explains, demonstrating a nuanced strategic eye and an intimate knowledge of her family business that belies her ‘creative’ job title. ‘While it was a risk, it would pay off to stick to our roots and maintain local manufacturing.’

With a staunchly family-oriented history, and all the emphasis on craftsmanship that Sussex already had pumping through its legacy, it made more sense to keep doing what they were doing and weather the storm. Vanessa knew the appetite for local, handcrafted products would return.

And return it did; alongside an invigorated and impassioned sustainability movement.

‘There was just so much to fight for with our company: all our artisans, who had literally been hand-crafting our taps since the beginning, and our unique foundry capabilities,’ explains Vanessa. As one of the only tap manufacturers in Australia to own and operate their own foundry, this means Sussex also has a completely closed loop production line. They are able to melt down swarf (the chippings and debris leftover from metalwork) to create brass blocks that eventually become the tapware.

‘Our foundry enables us to have a sustainable, circular production model, but if we also look at sustainability as a business practice, staying local gives us more control,’ explains Vanessa. With four factories across Melbourne’s north, operating locally also cuts their carbon footprint in half, especially as everything is designed and manufactured in the city. They also recently installed 100kw solar panels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 131 tonnes per year.

Though this seems as savvy as leadership stories get, Vanessa didn’t immediately trust her instincts when it came to taking her established family business into the twenty-first century. ‘It took me some time to grow the confidence to run a business on my own two feet,’ she recalls. ‘Particularly in the manufacturing industry which is so male-dominated.’

Much like her father – who transferred his watch and jewellery-making skills into tap making – Vanessa brought her longstanding passions for architecture and fashion to her role as Creative Director, aiming to inject influences from other areas of the design sphere into the business’ robust legacy. Vanessa was taking Sussex in an updated direction, but making the conscious decision to keep the heritage narrative intact, and visible. Gradually, the leadership role began to feel her own.

‘When I took over, one of the first things I set about doing was updating the brand to feel much more contemporary and forward-looking,’ she explains of her business philosophy, heavily imbued with an equal attachment to Sussex and the principles of good design. ‘It’s about carrying all that legacy knowledge and letting it give us the confidence to be bold and modern with our branding and visual communications.’

With her husband heading up the manufacturing side of things, and Vanessa at the creative helm, the business remains family-owned and run, and the pair have been able to add new technology to their manufacturing processes, alongside the age-old, handcrafted brass techniques. This digital innovation spills over into the customer-facing side of Sussex, with their Design Studio app allowing clients to mix and match colours and finishes on their tapware to create bespoke fittings. ‘Hand-craftsmanship is still a fundamental pillar of our manufacturing methods, but we aim to be agile and responsive, mixing a tailored approach with big capabilities.’ It’s this blend of digital innovation and family legacy that Vanessa says makes Sussex special.

‘When I took over from dad as Director in 2011, I brought with me a really strong sense of the company’s ethos,’ she says. ‘I grew up with Sussex very much being part of my life and over time I became more and more involved. Now it all feels like a very organic evolution—one that is still going.’

Resisting the temptation to compare artists to icons is hard, but in the case of Julia Trybala, the comparison to Mirka Mora is deserved. The Melbourne-based artist’s subjects swell and inflate, pressing against the sides of their frames in an energetic style that echoes Mirka’s naive lines, distinctive faces and irrepressible colours.

Julia doesn’t think so as much (Marlene Dumas and Phillip Guston are her heroes) but her painting nevertheless exudes an intimacy that is hard to look away from. ‘The goal is to make honest and relatable paintings,’ she says of her work, and the universality is sincere. ‘This new body of work (opening this month at Saint Cloche) channels tender and intimate moments from the everyday; offering a sly look over a shoulder, presenting a flower, a mesh top draped on a bed spread.’

From the small studio out the back of her sharehouse in Melbourne, Julia paints women who are both cramped and excessive, intimate and overbearing. The ‘bratty faces, contorted nudes and big feet’ make up grotesque figures, all fighting against the confines of their canvases. They seemingly have nowhere else to go.

‘I use painting and drawing as a way of contemplating myself, my relationships and surroundings,’ the artist muses. ‘Because I don’t really work from photographs, I find myself collating ideas, gestures and expressions of people… to later try and replicate through painting.’ Though her memories are clear, Julia’s process is more spontaneous. She makes charcoal sketches before putting paint to canvas impulsively. From there, her ambiguous forms take shape, themes of vulnerability tangled with familiarity, entwined in a carnal coil of flesh.

But physicality doesn’t stand in the way of the psychological nuance Julia is attempting to unravel. ‘I hope by exploring these varied emotional states of stylised characters that are coy, creepy, bitter, horny, I can allude to a sense of intimacy and tenderness,’ she explains. Through her work, Julia participates in a shared artistic mission to portray the human condition. ‘I think all painters making figurative works are voyeurs,’ she says. By the looks of things, she’s probably right.

Room by Julia Trybala opens at Saint Cloche Gallery on Wednesday, March 25th  from 6-8pm, and runs until Sunday, April 5th.  

While it seems like many of us are still easing into the 2020, Rachel Castle has already produced a new bedding range, and it’s available to pre-order now! 

As is always the case with Castle products, the ‘Little Garden’ bedding range began as an artwork. ‘I’d just finished a load of little paintings with watercolour, acrylic and gouache, with some pencil and pastel combined, and they were so pretty with all the different textures,’ says Rachel. Ordinarily this artwork would be reduced down to seven or eight colours before being printed onto products, but in this instance, Rachel wanted the entire palette of the original work to be represented. ‘This time we printed them all, and we are thrilled with the outcome.’ 

A soft wash cotton has been used to accommodate the collection’s new printing technique, with tie ends added to all the quilts. The intensity of the floral back is paired with a new creamy spot linen, because, as Rachel says, ‘we just couldn’t do a range without a spot!’ 

Items in this range were shot in the Byron Shire at Riverhawk Ranch, the creative family home of the Amos family. (You can see our feature on that very home here!). 

The Little Garden bedding range by Castle and Things is available to pre-order now. Complementary cushions, sweaters and artworks will be released in the coming months.

As designers, Rosie Morley and Rob McNaught felt a responsibility to ‘re-life’ a rundown building as their future home. When searching for a suitable heritage property around the Macedon Ranges where Rosie grew up, they came across a former 1870s pub (which they had previously marvelled at due to its derelict state) and decided to buy it. 

The property was certainly not in a liveable state at the time of purchase, with bats, owls and rats living inside, and wire wrapped around the perimeter to stop livestock entering! It was immediately clear that a complete restoration from the ground up was required. 

This original pub was inclusive of a front bar, ladies lounge, cellar, beer garden, commercial kitchen, and sleeping quarters originally used to service gold rush miners and farmers. The pub was decommissioned in 1959, later surviving two major bushfires, and was eventually used by several locals as a halfway house. ‘We are merely the custodians of a piece of Australian history. We have saved part of our history and preserved it to hopefully continue for another 150 years,’ Rosie says.

Rosie is the associate director at architecture and design studio Carr, and Rob is a project coordinator at Creature Technology, so the couple were able to draw on their extensive design knowledge to undertake this restoration without external help. In saying that, it took them three years to complete, and the project almost killed them, with Rob ending up in hospital with exhaustion and pneumonia two weeks before their wedding on the property! ‘To take something abandoned and use our every available resource to rebuild it has been the making of us. Everything in built form has been handmade without mass machinery or external workforce,’ Rosie says. 

The now restored home features a reinstated cellar and recreated bar, as a tribute to the property’s history. Attention was paid to ensure new additions remained true to the era, with every salvage yard in the area scoured for sympathetic materials. A uniform use of Dulux colours (including Night Sky on the exterior, and Natural White, Malay Grey, Domino on the interiors) highlights the Victorian detailing such as skirting and ceiling roses. ‘It is more about natural textures and how light falls across them,’ Rosie says. 

Since hosting their wedding here in 2016, Rosie and Rob have continued to host regular gatherings in the house, and immerse themselves in the local community. They happily share the property with their two dogs, cat and a flock of Suffolk sheep! ‘We love having people here. The pub feels more like itself and comes into its own when filled with people,’ Rosie says. ‘The community has fully embraced us, we have never felt more welcome and at home.’

The biggest challenge when completely redoing the interior of any family home is trying to ensure that even after the renovation, the home still feels lived in. A place where joy and memories have been made. A happy house.

This is the kind of project interior designer, Lena Bruno, jumps on with glee.

‘After discussing the project renovation with the clients at length, I immediately had a vision of injecting a sense of happiness and fun into the design, with lots of considered details in unexpected places,’ said Lena, the Director of interior design studio, By Bruno.

The original Edwardian weatherboard was transformed on the inside, flipping the central living room into a master suite, and restoring the bones of the hallway and children’s bedrooms to their original period charm. Lena’s mission was to create a ‘quirky but fun home with distinctive patterns, contrasting pastels and muted tones and textures throughout’.

Her modus operandi is selecting uncommon finishes and materials – and using them in nontraditional places. Dusty pink grout clouds the white bathroom tiles, demonstrating the economical ways you can experiment with creative tiling, and custom glass shelves were used to bring light into the kitchen without compromising on privacy. A carefully curated paint palette, marble slabs for wow factor, ‘a kaleidoscope of different coloured grouts’ and sot timber textures were Lena’s weapons of choice.

But it’s still the bold materials that leave the brightest impressions. ‘The pink reconstituted terrazzo-like stone from Italy that was used as end panels in the kitchen (which we made into a gorgeous coffee table with the leftovers)’ is the statement piece that Lena can’t quite get over. ‘Anyone who sees it just drools over it!’