K apartment

2016 | Gadigal/Birrabirragal Country | Woollahra

Set within an Art Deco building in Woollahra, the K apartment explores the ways in which an apartment can achieve the feeling of space and generosity of a detached house. Designed for a young professional couple, the brief for the renovation was to be a reflection of the way they wished to live their lives - in open spaces that were generous and filled with light. The interior of the original apartment was dark, with small openings between rooms; grey walls and black bamboo floors have been replaced with a more reductive palette of European oak parquetry, Calacatta Vagli stone, and joinery elements detailed to blend in with the white walls. The neutral materiality combines simplicity and spatial purity to provide a counterpoint to the colourful artwork the clients wished to exhibit. Raising the head heights of openings between rooms to take advantage of existing tall ceilings allowed for a heightened sense of space transitioning through the apartment, further enhanced by the use of mirrors at the end of vistas. The contemporary elements of the scheme sit in behind the period detailing, celebrating the original features of the apartment. A series of individual spaces now form a generous, light-filled, unified whole. 

Built by Align Constructions
Photography by Katherine Lu