living in design living in design

# 15

Eight of the best designers from the Region share their favourite things. Some new

solutions for old challenges. And how to make small spaces work for you, and all the family.

habitus # 15Whether you’re looking to buy or just looking for fun, the latest products never cease to amaze, pushing the boundaries and re-interpreting old classics in new and surprising ways.

Enter the home of a creative soul and you’ll also enter their mind. Meet some interesting, intellectual and inventive beings…

48. alpha60 a brother-sister design duo that lives and works together, seamlessly channelling their forces for a range of professional and personal projects. alice Blackwood is invited into the creative domain of alex and Georgie Cleary of young Melbourne fashion brand, alpha60.

61. ShalINI GaNENDRa fINE aRt art is vocation and passion for Shalini Ganendra, who has built a gallery and artist’s residence in Kuala lumpur. amy Ng visits the gallery and her home.

73. BaRBaRa & DOMINIC SaNSONI Sri lankan artist, Barbara Sansoni, has been the doyenne of the country’s creative scene. andrew pfeiffer meets her and her son, Dominic, a well-known photographer and more recently, Barbara's business partner.

85. aNGElENa ChaN Singapore’s hungry housing market demands new ways of thinking about living. angie Chan of Index Design shares her unique approach – narrative-driven and flexible design solutions – with lynn tan.

24. DESIGN NEwS hot products for indoors and outdoors, and for home, work and play.

26. tIlES & BathROOMS the latest designs and innovations from the Cersaie fair in Italy.

30. wINE Equip yourself for entertainment with a connoisseur's collection of accessories.

35. CaMERaS with this selection, anyone can be a professional, or at least look like one.

37. DESIGN hUNtER faVOURItES what products do Design hunters love? Eight creatives nominate their favourites for our gravity-defying photo shoot.

#37

#48

habitus # 15Where we live is a reflection of our values, personality and particular way of life. Across the Region we are inspired by the diversity that we see.

Take some time, the Italian way, to wander through Puglia, and we drop into suburbia to critically reflect on its architecture.

98. lINEaR hOUSE a beach house in portsea in Victoria by architects Eat embodies the indoor/outdoor living found in tropical resorts, inspired by the owners’ travels across South-East asia. Stephen Crafti visits.

109. BROOKValE apaRtMENt Sometimes size is just a perception. Singapore architect, Juliana Chan, and her interior designer husband, tristan tan, use height and planning ingenuity to create space in their own apartment, Darlene Smyth discovers.

120. hERNE Bay hOUSE a sustainable approach and flexible living were factors in this auckland home designed by andrea Bell of pete Bossley architects. andrea Stevens sees how it all came together.

131. pOttS pOINt apaRtMENt an apartment in an iconic Sydney block by harry Seidler received a live-in makeover by architect, anthony Gill. Jane Burton taylor tours the clever and compact interior.

141. MaRR GROUNDS hOUSE living in art is not a myth, but the way of life chosen by architect and artist, Marr Grounds. Caroline Baum visits his unique home on the New South wales south coast.

154. GORE St hOUSE architect Ilana Kister updated an inner-suburban warehouse in fitzroy for her growing family – the challenges were creating privacy and light.

164. DUffy’S fORESt hOUSE paul McGillick pays homage to the late Bruce Rickard’s final project on Sydney's north-eastern edge.

175. COUSINS’ hOUSES pirak anurakyawachon visits a project where tonkao panin and thanakarn Mokasmith have designed homes for a multi-generational family on one site.

184. GIBBON St hOUSE Shaun lockyer architects re-interpreted a traditional australian typology in the design of this Brisbane house. Jenna Reed Burns investigates.

198. pUGlIa this southern region is the heel of the Italian boot. Jane Burton taylor journeys to and around its interior and discovers its intertwining history, landscape and architecture.

205. BOOK REVIEw the suburbs are a necessary housing solution, but much of the architecture is thoughtless, characterless and haphazard. Reviewing some recent books, linda Cheng argues that it doesn’t have to be this way.

#154

#198

#109

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In her profile of Singaporean interior designer, Angie Chan, Lynn Tan points out that the size of apartments in Singapore is growing smaller due to the lack of land. It is a phenomenon seen all over the world – first seen in Japan where architects have become masters in maximising the amenity of minimal spaces.Angie Chan (#85) is one person who has made it her mission to optimise the

potential of small apartments. Juliana Chan (#109), on the other hand, used her own home on the west coast of Singapore as a unique challenge, radically modifying a 1980s apartment to give it an enhanced sense of space by removing walls and the ceiling, and by creating a high degree of connectivity both internally and with the outside by borrowing the landscape.

In Sydney, architect Anthony Gill (#131) took a small, but classic apartment by Harry Seidler and, on a miniscule budget, turned it into a comfortable and elegant inner suburban home. Like Juliana Chan, Gill has maximised practical space, with great creative flair.

Meanwhile, back in Bangkok, architects, Tonkao Panin and Thanakarn Mokasmith (#175), have picked up on a growing trend to re-invent the traditional South-East Asian compound house as a home for the extended family. This trend involves multiple dwellings on the same site, thus maximising land use while keeping up to four generations of a family living together. The trick is how to marry communal living with the levels of privacy which a younger generation prefers.

And there are other examples in this issue involving clever planning, sustainable strategies and adaptive re-use. It may not be a deliberate theme in the magazine, but it does highlight the kind of innovative design which is making our region one the major creative hotspots in the world, especially in the light of growing environmental and societal pressures.

Paul McGillick | Editor

the first wordWe don’t do themes in Habitus. But if I were pressed to find one in this second issue of the new-look Habitus, it would be: making the most of what you’ve got.

LEFT | editor, paul mcgillick. rIghT | deputy editor, nicky lobo.

issue #15 habitusliving.com

Clockwise from top left | Mutina Déchirer (La Suite) in Net pattern unglazed porcelain designed by Patricia Urquiola in Cemento, $100/m2, Living Tiles, Academy Tiles, Elite Bathware & Tiles; Mutina Déchirer (La Suite) in Trace pattern unglazed porcelain designed by Patricia Urquiola in Calce, $100/m2, Living Tiles, Academy Tiles, Elite Bathware & Tiles; Studio Glass Tile in Spring 600x100mm, $36/tile, Everstone; Pietralavica Gryphea, LAP, 60cmx60cm, $88/m2, Living Tiles; Joy – Multi Onyx (bottom right) 300x300mm sheets, $74/sheet, Everstone; Castle Pyramid (centre, base) marble mosaics in Silver in polished and honed finishes on 300x300mm sheets, $38/sheet, Everstone.

on the hunt... tiles & bathroomware

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# 271. lightbox

The ADMirAL cast iron bathtub features a new surface texture that provides a rich copper lustre, matching the antique copper finish of the feet and free-standing Coventry bath mixer.

devon-devon.com / studiobagno.com.au

The i-obsessed among us will delight in the new iSPA range from Gessi. Featuring a human-centric approach and familiar functional language, the collection includes a number of high-tech faucets and mixers with either a soft-touch electronic or sleek joystick control mechanism.

gessi.it / abey.com.au

1930s glamour was in the mind of Spanish designer, Jaime Hayon, when designing a range for the newly launched Bisazza Bagno. The masterful mosaic brand has branched out into bathroomware with two collections: one from Hayon and the other from Dutch designer, Marcel Wanders. Each range comunicates their individually playful aesthetics – “The bathroom is the most important room in the home and should not be hidden,” Hayon believes.

bisazzabagno.it

Porcelanosa’s technical branch, Urbatek, has re-imagined the stylish YAzz series with a solid, iron-like appearance inspired by basalt. The tiles are through-body porcelain – the colour on the top of the tile goes all the way through the thickness of the tile – which means they tend not to show wear. Typically harder than granite, porcelain ranges such as this are a durable option for high-traffic areas.

porcelanosa.com / earp.com.au

issue #15 habitusliving.com

If there is one way to make a memorable entrance, it would be through the front door of Alex and Georgie Cleary’s Melbourne residence, a beautifully renovated home of warehouse proportions, shrouded within

the guise of its former life as the Westgarth town hall in the inner-city suburb of Northcote.

Anyone can be forgiven for approaching the building with a touch of hesitation, but timidly tapping on its heavy, towering door is no way to seek admission in to this unlikely home. Af-ter a soft rap of knuckles received no response on this particular morning, a firm push gained me entrance, and I slipped inside to find myself suddenly dwarfed by a long, sweeping hallway.

In the echo of a “hello?” comes Alex Cleary – fashion designer, engineer, renovator, project coordinator – briskly walking down that long open stretch. Alex and sister Georgie are the heads and hands behind the ultra-fashionable Melbourne brand, Alpha60, and they both admit to a small obsession for big projects. “We feel lost when we don’t have a thousand things on,” Georgie says.

As if Alpha60 isn’t big enough, with two season releases per year and six fashion stores

prevIous | The graphic sTripes of The sTairwell make for a sTriking TransiTion beTween The ground floor and upper level. above left | The concreTe kiTchen benchTop is a special piece for alex and georgie, poured and seT on siTe. above rIght | The expansive living space is filled wiTh sTaTuesque iTems. The collecTion of coke boTTles was discovered under The house when re-sTumping.

2. portrait # 51

Arthur G FurnitureAustralian Designed, Australian Manufactured

Melbourne Showroom - 618 Church St Richmond 3121 - Tel. (03) 9429 6696Sydney Showroom - Shop 1/8 Hill St Surry Hills 2010 - Tel. (02) 9332 1488Perth Showroom - 207 Stirling Hwy Claremont 6010 - Tel. (08) 9286 1433

Belair Sofa featured - www.arthurg.com.au

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2. portrait # 61

Living with(in) Art

text amy ng | photography derek swalwell

The idea of inviting art into one’s home in Asia, is still taking root. But, for Shalini Ganendra

– fine art consultant, gallerist and former Wall Street lawyer – not only did she welcome it into

her home, she also has a purpose-built gallery in the suburbs of Kuala lumpur, Malaysia.

above | ShAlini gAnendrA AT hoMe WiTh her dAughTer JuliAnA.

Arthur G FurnitureAustralian Designed, Australian Manufactured

Melbourne Showroom - 618 Church St Richmond 3121 - Tel. (03) 9429 6696Sydney Showroom - Shop 1/8 Hill St Surry Hills 2010 - Tel. (02) 9332 1488Perth Showroom - 207 Stirling Hwy Claremont 6010 - Tel. (08) 9286 1433

Belair Sofa featured - www.arthurg.com.au

HAB15_Arthur G_FP.indd 1 18/01/12 2:27 PM

Melbourne 03 8552 6000 Sydney 02 9822 5155 Gold Coast 07 5537 3222 Perth 08 9406 3100 Auckland 09 443 3932

STUA

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SIGN

With beauty borne over millions of years, only natural stone offers a truly timeless look to make all your own. For almost 30 years CDK Stone has been sourcing only the most glorious stone from every corner of the world.

Fall in love with the enduring beauty of natural stone, visit cdkstone.com.au or call to join our mailing list.

THIS SEASON’S LOOKthe same as the last

840,000 YEARS

HAB15_CDK Stone_FP.indd 1 18/01/12 1:25 PM

2. portrait # 73

On the Verandah

text Andrew Pfeiffer | PhOtOgrAPhy dOminic SAnSOni

Sri Lanka has a rich architecture and design

culture driven by a small but cohesive number of

key figures. The mercurial BarBara SanSoni has been a stalwart among this group, supported in

recent years by her photographer son, Dominic.

above left | dominic sansoni (phoTo by isabella sansoni). above right | barbara aT work aT her home in colombo.

american authors Charles Hulse and Gordon Merrick both claimed that when they first came to live in Sri Lanka in 1972 there were five remarkable Sri Lankans,

creatively and socially in Colombo: Geoffrey Bawa, the architect; his brother, landscape designer, Bevis Bawa; Ena de Silva, designer of unique Silhanese batik; painter and sculptor, Laki Senanayake; and Barbara Sansoni, fabric designer, artist and successful businesswoman.

Forty years later, Barbara Sansoni is acknowledged as an ever-greater institution in Sri Lanka. She and her photographer son, Dominic, are to the arts today what the dominant Bandaranaike family has been to modern politics in the country.

While internationally they are perhaps best known for their renowned shop, Barefoot – which, for the most part, sells fabrics, furniture and crockery designed by Barbara – both are also artists in their own right. And it is their artistic ability which has been the springboard for the success of the family business.

The Australian artist, Donald Friend lived in Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) from 1958 until 1963. A friend of my parents, he often talked about the Bawas and Sansonis on visits to our house, and so I date the mid-1960s as the

Melbourne 03 8552 6000 Sydney 02 9822 5155 Gold Coast 07 5537 3222 Perth 08 9406 3100 Auckland 09 443 3932

STUA

RT R

ATTL

E DE

SIGN

With beauty borne over millions of years, only natural stone offers a truly timeless look to make all your own. For almost 30 years CDK Stone has been sourcing only the most glorious stone from every corner of the world.

Fall in love with the enduring beauty of natural stone, visit cdkstone.com.au or call to join our mailing list.

THIS SEASON’S LOOKthe same as the last

840,000 YEARS

HAB15_CDK Stone_FP.indd 1 18/01/12 1:25 PM

Bring an Italian designer into your kitchen.

Armando Vicario Established 1974. Gozzano, Italy.Embodying the vision of Italy’s most renowned tapware designer, the stunning Armando Vicario collection is now available in Australia. Crafted in Italy, the Armando Vicario name is synonymous with tapware of meticulous quality, effortless functionality and unmistakable style.

View the Armando Vicario collection at an Abey showroom.

VIC 208 York St, South Melbourne 03 8696 4000NSW 1E Danks Street, Waterloo 02 8572 8500QLD 94 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane 07 3369 4777WA 34 Walters Drive, Osborne Park 08 9446 8255

abey.com.au

HAB15_Abey_FP.indd 1 18/01/12 1:32 PM

2. portrait # 85

higher pursuits

text Lynn tan | photography derek swaLweLL

Two decades on, inspired by an early visit to the National University of Singapore’s

architecture faculty, angelena Chan has a thriving architectural practice and a niche in

residential design. Here she talks to lynn Tan about how she works, what she believes and

how she strives to get the best results for her clients.

Bring an Italian designer into your kitchen.

Armando Vicario Established 1974. Gozzano, Italy.Embodying the vision of Italy’s most renowned tapware designer, the stunning Armando Vicario collection is now available in Australia. Crafted in Italy, the Armando Vicario name is synonymous with tapware of meticulous quality, effortless functionality and unmistakable style.

View the Armando Vicario collection at an Abey showroom.

VIC 208 York St, South Melbourne 03 8696 4000NSW 1E Danks Street, Waterloo 02 8572 8500QLD 94 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane 07 3369 4777WA 34 Walters Drive, Osborne Park 08 9446 8255

abey.com.au

HAB15_Abey_FP.indd 1 18/01/12 1:32 PM

supacentamoorepark.com.au

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Architect, Juliana Chan describes

her apartment in Brookvale Walk,

Singapore, as, “a little hidden gem”.

And Darlene Smyth agrees that

she and her interior designer husband,

triStan tan, have miraculously

turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Apartment alchemy

text Darlene Smyth | photography rupert Singleton

3. on location # 109

Designed for designers, Perrin & Rowe Contemporary is a stunning collection of premium quality tapware and accessories. Original designs and engineering excellence come together to create beautiful and authentic products.

Introducing the Orbiq Kitchen Tap by Perrin & Rowe, of Mayfair, London.

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With a baby on the way, the architect couple behind Anthony Gill Architects were motivated to maximise the space and

amenity of an already tight and efficient apartment in sydney.

JAne Burton tAylor tells us how they did it.

Make it now

text Jane Burton taylor | photography peter Bennetts

# 1313. on location

previous | One Of Harry Seidler’S claSSic 1960’S buildingS, a pair Of tOwerS called gemini in pOttS pOint. One building HaS One-bedrOOm unitS Only, tHe OtHer StudiOS, and tHere iS a rOOftOp pOOl and cOmmunal area cOnnected by a bridge. above | in tHeir re-deSign, arcHitectS antHOny gill and SaraH mcSpadden’S main interventiOn waS tO inStall a central cabinetry wall Of HOOp pine ply.

issue #15 habitusliving.com

after five years of living in a Harry Seidler apartment, architects Sarah McSpadden and Anthony Gill decided to make a change. Working on tight finances and a spatial budget

of just 38m2, they added their own thoughtful layer to the design of the renowned master of lean, efficient planning.

Gill, who together with McSpadden heads up Anthony Gill Architects, says they had long been thinking about turning the apartment’s one north-facing bedroom with a harbour view into a home office, and doubling up its living and sleeping space. But it was when McSpadden fell pregnant that they were inspired to action and promptly drew up plans.

When the couple first bought the apartment, it had its original layout. There was an entry hall with joinery forming the wall to a bedroom. Two adjoining doors opened into bedroom and bathroom. The kitchen was in the north-west corner and was partially open to the living space.

“The kitchen was not original,” Gill remembers. “And although the bones of the entry were, it was covered in mirrors, so we didn’t feel we were taking out Harry.”

The couple’s re-design aimed to capitalise on the solid Seidler bones and, at the same time, meet their own specific family needs.

“The re-design partly stems from Seidler’s ideas about economy of space and scale,” says Gill. “In our building, he reduced the space down to what is essential. The building in Potts Point is made up of just one-bedroom units.

“This basic nature is then made rich through ideas about how people might inhabit the space differently,” he adds.

The couple’s brief for themselves was to create a bedroom for their daughter, Marigold, to increase living space and to redress the dearth of storage space. “It was a matter of re-configuring everything so we could do that,” Gill says.

They decided to keep the bathroom where it was. With this as a given starting point, they inserted a single piece of cabinetry running the length of the unit, with an opening into a now smaller north-facing bedroom and into the galley kitchen.

“It is a 600mm block of cabinetry that runs through the whole apartment,” Gill says. “It is like an insertion.”

To make room for their own sleeping space, Gill and McSpadden raised the floor level of

3. on location # 133

issue #15 habitusliving.com

neighbours. And because of this, it’s become the problem child that lacks discipline and hasn’t been taught about boundaries.

There’s a school of urbanists who are repulsed by the sight of the suburbs due to its banality, mediocrity and Stepford Wife-style conformity. This is what Robin Boyd called ‘The Australian Ugliness’, in his 1960 best-selling book of the same title. Half a century later, it seems very little has changed.

It’s not the suburb’s fault, this ugliness. Nor is it confined to Australia. The suburb, by definition, is the middle-of-the-road place between the urban (the city) and the rural, and it’s the same everywhere in the world. It’s the bulbous part of a bell-curve distribution of our housing stock. Conformity, or to put it another way, sameness, is perhaps unavoidable, but there’s absolutely no reason for the banal and mediocre. With good design, you can find endless ways to make the suburban dwelling a well-considered place to call home.

There are some stunning examples of good design in our suburbs. Forty-Six Square Metres

Deep within the Australian consciousness lies the universal desire for the Great Australian Dream – the quarter acre block with a little cottage or bungalow

and a white picket fence in a quiet suburban neighbourhood. Maybe the dream is not quite so twee for everyone but essentially, home ownership is, and has always been, the single biggest financial goal of everyone’s lives. As our population grows and the size of the average household shrinks, the demand for property is at risk of almost vanquishing the dream. We are so wedded to the idea of owning property that even our Government is willing to financially support the entire housing industry through high interest savings schemes and first home owners’ grants.

The suburb is where the majority of us choose to realise that dream. It’s getting more and more popular, its edges are expanding relentlessly into greenfields. Like a beloved baby of the family, our suburbs are showered in attention. It’s spoilt by the doting uncles and grandparents of state and federal governments, protected by NIMBY

4. reportage # 207

by architect, writer and radio host Stuart Harrison rounds up 45 of the best Australian and New Zealand houses produced in recent years. The book chronicles these houses from smallest to largest in land area and compares them by the number of dwellings on the land, area per dwelling and average area per person. It’s an insightful look into the quality of space possible even on limited land size, but also and more importantly, it highlights the design innovations that make for quality of space rather than quantity.

Most of the houses featured in the book are situated in inner-city to inner-suburban locations. But this is largely irrelevant. The question being is “how much space [do] we need… as we enter a more resource-limited and energy-sensitive future?” – particularly land area. As the book shows, the smallest plot of land, Domenic Alvaro’s Small House in Surry Hills, Sydney (Habitus #12), can offer a luxurious amount of space (82.5m2 per person), while a site in Fremantle in Western Australia, the land area a little larger than the quarter acre block,

can accommodate no less than seven dwellings. Density offers limitless possibilities, despite the limits of land size, and this is the lesson that our ugly suburban sprawl should learn from.

As Stuart Harrison writes in his essay, “Every dwelling built within our cities is one saved on the outer suburban frontier”. And he goes on to point out that, “architects have a responsibility to demonstrate to clients that denser housing is rich with design opportunities and more sustainable than bigger housing”. However, given that only 2% of all building activity in this country involves the work of an architect, I’m afraid he could be preaching only to the faithful.

It’s the other 98% that’s making our suburbs ugly. I blame the developers who are continually erecting ever more supersized new housing developments on the suburban fringe in an ‘If you build it, they will come’ mentality. They take up our precious land resources, not to mention the extension in the infrastructure required to service those areas. But they’re attractive to the home-buyer because why would you pay through the nose for an infill site which you

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