Carlotta Take Two. A Light Take.
We were approached to re-envision a beloved home that we had designed two years previously, this time for new owners, a professional couple with teenage children. An intriguing opportunity - to re-think familiar spaces in a new light, considering the different tastes and preferences of new occupants. A re-invention without the ‘heavy lifting’ required by full-scale renovations: a ‘light take’. Our clients design brief was to inject warmth, intimacy and comfort within a soaring concrete bunker to be a home that facilitated elevated family living whilst responding to the way in which they wanted to inhabit the space. The family wanted a space that not only welcomed larger hospitable group experiences, but that also allowed for quieter moments for retreat. Though highly curated, it is a space that was designed for living well.
Our directive was to provide conversational and comfortable settings as well as new and adapted joinery and decorative elements within the existing space that would add a sense of warmth and softness that paired with the urban contemporaneity of the homes existing architecture.
Colour used as a ‘feminine’ counterpoint to the ‘masculine’ elements of the raw off-form concrete walls and soffit, always a balance of shape, form and tone. The resulting space is a reflection of the manner and sophistication of the owners themselves. There is a delicate softness interspersed throughout the home with ‘punchy’ elements that comfortably sit against its cool industrial backdrop of the home.
With large open spaces that accommodate distinct yet inter-related programmes, the soaring 3.5 metre concrete soffit that frames a vista into the treetops beyond, naturally draws the surroundings into the interior. This affords an opportunity to layer these tones and the view harmoniously with the interior curation. To create privacy within larger spaces we provided intimate settings, defining edges with floor coverings and punctuating ‘zones’ with colour shifts.
Every person brings their own set of history, emotions and aesthetic to a house. What makes a house a home? We wanted to lean into the need to reinvent a house to become the home that reflected our client’s personality and way of life, yet to do so ‘lightly’.
