Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2021 i Belle

DAYS OF HEAVEN Called on by Brickworks to reimagine the humble breezeblock, industrial designer Adam Goodrum responded with a deceptively simple geometric form that can be arranged in almost infinite configurations and patterns. Perfectly marrying technical precision with a more elusive, emotional resonance, ‘Kite Breeze’ was inspired by the coastal architecture of Adam’s childhood in Western Australia – halcyon days cooled by sea breezes and dappled shade – evoking the optimistic spirit of modernism. brickworks.com.au…

“THE SUN NEVER KNEW how great it was until it hit the side of a building,” said Louis Kahn, the great American architect. His comment is what comes to my mind when looking at the exterior of Susi Leeton’s Birch Tree House in a leafy Melbourne suburb. Indeed, it is this combination of light, nature and sculptural architectural form that sums up the best of her work. “The desire to create evocative work that is both romantic and poetic is very intentional, and the vibration of light and shadow on external surfaces communicates the connection to the natural context,” Leeton says. She started her career studying fine art, but was drawn to the collaborative potential of architecture and the ability to create 3D volumes. She describes it as “like painting…

WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR ENDURING CREATIVE INFLUENCES? Scott Fellows: We have always been influenced by Modernism’s rigour and clarity, combined with quality craftsmanship and the warmth of natural materials. Louis Kahn’s work is the best manifestation of this. His projects are completely and utterly resolved and that is a goal we strive for. The same can be said of Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson’s early work. WHAT WERE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR STUDIO AND HOW DID YOU BOTH FIRST ENCOUNTER THE SCHLUMBERGER ADMINISTRATION BUILDING BY PHILIP JOHNSON? All our furniture pieces have been created from a response to an architectural or interior design project brief. In that sense, architecture drives everything we do. We wanted our studio to reflect that – it had to be an architectural…

OVE RNIGHT, outdoor space has become a commodity hotter than ever and can be just as restorative as a faraway jaunt. We can create holiday-at-home experiences by making outdoor areas comfortable, functional and ultra-luxe. In the Covid-19 era, however big or small, our gardens should be a source of joy, and offer safety and freedom. GOING ALFRESCO Knowing how you will use the space is key. Some gardens are to be viewed from inside, some are a passive space to read the newspaper, some for entertaining, and some for all of the above. EMBRACE YOUR ASSETS Find your power spot. If you have a roof deck with an enviable view, celebrate it by placing the furnishings to direct eyes to the view. Is the backyard shaded by a building? Enhance…

With its soaring cathedral ceilings, this threelevel home overlooking the harbour in Sydney’s inner east takes light-filled, airy living to lofty new heights. Sky and water are constant companions in a spectacular house that boldly defies its boundaries by exploiting its sloping site to its full potential. Miraculously, that celestial openness has been achieved within a street frontage a mere eight metres wide. When the owners bought the property in 2016, it was monopolised by a 100-year-old duplex with a maze of poky rooms, many starved of light. “Location and potential attracted us. The original house was divided into two apartments, one above the other, with both in need of TLC. We wanted to combine them into a single home,” says the owner, understating what the couple had in mind.…

Well, see you later 2020 – you were a bit of a niiiightmare – and hello 2021! I like to think of myself as an eternal optimist – deluded as it often is – I always think, keep on forging ahead – show up, do the work, be enthusiastic and everything will be AOK. The old 2020 had different ideas, though, and it didn’t play out quite how many people had planned. It has been a tough time for many and it was probably a well-overdue revelation to realise how spoilt and pampered we really are when we had to cope with being grounded, on home detention, cook every meal for ourselves, make our own coffee and forgo the beauty maintenance. However, it was a boon for some businesses such…

1_TILE LOVING Fornace Brioni creative director Cristina Celestino has updated the company’s HQ in Italy, wrapping the brand’s tiles from floor to ceiling to create hypnotic geometries and sinuous forms. fornacebrioni.it 2_GAME, SET, MATCH A nod to knucklebones, a game that dates back to Rome and Greece, the ‘Ossicle’ collection of seats, benches and tables for GioBagnara are crafted with leather and marble in monolithic style. giobagnara.com 3_PATTERN HERITAGE Soane Britain reworks old patterns into new designs. Fine artist Sophie Coryndon adapted the tooled gold-leaf background of the 14thcentury Wilton diptych as the basis for the ‘Wilton Vine’ pattern. soane.co.uk 4_WONDER WEAR French interior designer Pierre Yovanovich’s ‘Elie’ solid-oak bedside table is oiled and patinated ensuring it will age beautifully. pierreyovanovich.com 5_THAW POINT With a soft, graceful, drooping effect, Bower…

THE DECADE OF DESIGN shared by Belle and Coco Republic had a vastly different finale and awards night than anyone would have expected. Previously, the Awards evenings have seen Coco Republic’s Sydney headquarters bursting at the seams with established and up-and-coming interior design stars at a swanky party for hundreds of guests. This year the pandemic delivered us a different celebration in the form of a beautiful sit-down dinner for finalists, winners and sponsors expertly prepared by the team at Coco Republic’s in-house restaurant, Americano. It was an elegant and serene evening and thankfully our design friends from interstate tuned in via Zoom, in true 2020 style, as the teams from Melbourne scored lots of gongs. Thank you once again to Anthony Spon-Smith, Jeremy Byrne and Caitlin Nagle of Coco…

IS THERE AN ARTIST WHO HAS BEEN AN ENDURING INFLUENCE? Nan Goldin [7]. I was deeply impacted by seeing her show at the Whitney in 1996 and it really solidified my desire to work in a museum and with artists. I remember being so struck by who she was photographing, how she was photographing them and this idea that tough, difficult yet intimate photographs could be artworks and it really stayed with me. CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS WHO YOU MOST ADMIRE? Simone Leigh [11], who will represent the US at the 2022 Venice Biennale and is the first black female artist to do so. She has been working for decades but only recently gained much-deserved critical attention and I deeply respect her vision as both an artist and thinker. DO YOU COLLECT…

STONEFIELDS BY THE SEASONS Paul Bangay’s legendary Victorian property Stonefields is a joy to behold at any time of the year. Here he leads the reader on an extensive seasonal tour of the gardens, from the mellowness of autumn colour, through the winter frosting with snow, to the swelling buds and fresh green of spring, and finally to the profusion of summer flowers and voluptuous shade-bearing trees. Paul Bangay, Penguin Random House, $60 RESIDENT DOG 2 No one knows a house better than its resident pooch – the nooks and crannies, and places to sleep, watch the world go by and absorb the best aromas … This is the second volume in the series, just as enchanting as the first, as mutts of various persuasions scamper though their fabulous abodes,…

“WE SPENT A GREAT DEAL OF TIME CONSIDERING PROPORTIONS AND HOW WE INTENDED TO LIVE IN THE SPACE.” DESIGN-SAVVY homeowners entrepreneur Joel Bartfeld and his partner, visual merchandiser Ross Sabatini, steered their own renovat ion of a beaut iful Victorian terrace to create flexible interiors with layers of contemporary comforts and design classics within the heritage shell. When did you buy the house and what appealed? Joel: We bought it in 2012 with plans to restore it down the track. It was essentially a blank canvas which allowed us to create a home that suited our lifestyle and reflected our style. Low maintenance was really important for us because prior to the pandemic we both travelled a lot. We also loved the city fringe location and Victorian elements. What were…

The surprise element in this bijou Sydney eastern suburbs house, perfectly composed by interior architect Phoebe Nicol, is the pink carpet in the upstairs bedrooms. A brave colour choice it is not too ‘baby’ or ‘nursery’, says Phoebe, nor is it too ‘look at me’. Rather, the custom floor covering is a warm blush of softness that enhances the femininity and individuality of the elegant home. “It was definitely a brave move but I think we pulled it off,” says Phoebe. “The owner wanted a soft and feminine home and we had been looking at terracotta shades, but then the pink just seemed right and the client was happy to go with it.” The pink carpet could just be the icing on the cake but there are so many other…

Combining the owner’s two passions, cooking and the garden, was the driving force in the revamp of this family home on Sydney’s lower North Shore by Justine Hugh-Jones and Katrina Mackintosh of Hugh-Jones Mackintosh. Faced with a fairly bland house with no remarkable features, the designers set out to create a contemporary home with an ambience of pared-back luxury and a coherent flow between indoors and out. The house was set well back on the generous-sized block, but movement around and in and out of the house was restricted and rooms were unconnected. The position of the swimming pool added further to the problems as the outdoor area at the back of the house could only be accessed via the pool enclosure. “Everything was very locked in and confined,” says…

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR WORKSPACE? Crafted with character. I’ve designed our Melbourne and Daylesford studios to feel like a representation of our work: less office and more residence, so the spirit of what we do shines through. For this space, I wanted it to be relevant to the properties in the Macedon Ranges suited to our work, so there’s strong art and softer contemporary pieces that elevate the country context. WHAT INITIALLY APPEALED TO YOU ABOUT THE SPACE? DID IT REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT ALTERATIONS? The first day I went looking, there it was! Right in the centre of town in the historic Old Vic Building. It couldn’t have been more perfect (except we were in lockdown). We did the whole thing remotely and as the last lick of paint was…

Tuned into blue skies both far and near, a luxe collection for seekers of new horizons.…

SYDNEY CULTURE TRIP Samoan-New Zealander artist Christopher Ulutupu’s cinematic trilogy, The Romantic Picturesque (still, right), draws on exoticised postcard depictions of Pacific Island people and landscapes to explore the performance of identity, cultural stereotyping and the effects of colonisation and diaspora. Distilled from staged encounters between palagi (foreigners) and Pacific Islanders, the work forms part of a joint show with American artists Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin titled ‘Attention Tourist’. January 16-March 7. cementfondu.org MELBOURNE SEEING DOUBLE Shea Kirk’s ongoing series of stereoscopic portraits (left) are formed through a slow, methodical process that affords agency to the sitter, capturing them with dual large-format cameras that produce subtle variations in perspective. February 17-March 13. dainesinger.com SYDNEY STATE OF UNDRESS Gideon Rubin avoids both the idealised beauty of the classical nude and…

Now in its 10th year, the prestigious Belle Coco Republic Interior Design Awards held in November celebrated today’s best talent – both emerging and established – in interior design and decoration. And in the true spirit of Australia’s flourishing creative industries, 2020’s worthy recipients each took home a trophy by esteemed local stonemason and sculptor Steven John Clark, founder of denHolm. Steven’s design for the handcrafted awards reflects his desire to make them less like a hero piece and more like a sculptural work of art. He says the idea was to create something that could sit comfortably on display at home without necessarily identifying as a conventional looking trophy. “I was vibing off Roman vessels but with a denHolm twist,” Steven says about his initial reference points. “However, the…

WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF YOUR ENDURING CREATIVE INFLUENCES? Growing up around some of the greatest artists in Australian history, and my education in painting and drawing. Writing a memoir was an unexpected talent and a creative outlet I didn’t know was within me. I see now that running and curating a successful art gallery is a creative act in its own right. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE AS THE DIRECTOR OF OLSEN GALLERY? My role as a gallerist is a constant gamble, not knowing how the public will respond to different artists. My relationship with my artists can look like a parent, a psychologist, a bank or a marriage. I also count some of these wonderful artists among my dear friends. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR OFFICE SPACE?…

There are no pink-plumaged birds to encounter at Flamingo Estate, but you will find a kaleidoscopic home with an equally colourful history and two very happy dogs. Cocker spaniels Daylesford and Freeway live in a 1940s Spanish Colonial Revival originally conceived as the headquarters for an erotic film company. Painstakingly restored for a new kind of creative vision, the house is now a playground for its permanent residents as well as a rotating cast of radical thinkers. Like the humans that flock to its hedonistic beauty, Freeway and Daylesford also find inspiration in their surroundings. They scratch their bottoms on Caribbean Tea Time (1985-87) – a lithograph folding screen by British artist David Hockney – in the living room, chase birds and sniff among 150 species of flowers and shrubs…

HAVING WORKED with the clients in the past, Felicity King was called on to bring warmth and connection to their new apartment 28 floors above Sydney Harbour, and the result is an elegant and cocooning home in the clouds. What was the brief? To create a space for entertaining with family and friends that celebrated the harbour setting while providing a calm and intimate refuge from the bustling city below. The design was to express the personalities of the clients and an aesthetic of refined, understated elegance. What were the challenges of the space and how did you resolve them? The challenge was to achieve the most from a predetermined amount of space. The floor plan was reorganised by removing and repositioning non-loadbearing walls and relocating the services, which allowed…

French designer Jean-Louis Deniot has a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach to decorating. He often likes to say: “You’re not going to change the course of the world by hanging a pair of curtains.” And although his interiors ooze elegance, they are not necessarily filled with hugely expensive, collectible pieces of furniture. “It’s what I call design confidence,” he asserts. “Some people need to have things from a certain gallery with a certain pedigree and then there are others who are ready to have fun simply with things that speak to them.” He says he is certainly not averse to buying something for a steal at a Los Angeles garage sale and transforming it with just the right choice of upholstery. He is also a firm believer in investing both energy and…

After 15 years of collecting precious antiques and filling a huge, neoclassical family house, the owners of this rooftop penthouse found it a challenge to downsize to an apartment almost four sizes smaller, considerably more modern and all on one level. It meant selling their home’s entire contents and holding on to only treasured pieces. Enter David Hicks, who helped steer his clients in the right direction, buoyed by the “clean slate” the space offered. He worked intimately with his clients on the “sight unseen” residence to establish a supremely bespoke interior that included raising the ceiling to make room for a large tapestry in the entry, designing cabinetry to accommodate hero pieces, modifying old French chandeliers for new placement and personalising wardrobe space. The owners sought a subdued, moody…