So the design brief, funnily enough, was that the client wanted it to look like it came out of a magazine. It needed to be an entertainer's house that was quite impressive. And he said it needed to have a wow factor. And then the brief, which was a little bit of a return brief from my side, it was something we spoke about a lot, was that it needed to feel quite bright. In the other duplexes that they've done before I was brought on after construction had started and everything had all kind of started going ahead. So with this one, I was brought on before the development application went in, and we were able to manipulate a lot of the spaces to increase window size and look out on the landscape setbacks. Yeah. That's pretty much the brief.

They left it pretty much up to me, but they knew my style, and I love, I guess, modern takes on European ancient styles. So having these little design details that nod to something like your Venetian plaster and the margin shaker profile, the chevron floors, the borders and the curves, and there's a few nods to European, but then we made it quite modern with the clean lines and layout. And then I guess, added another layer with all of these contrasting materials.

It is two and a half bathrooms, four bedrooms, one car garage, two living rooms, a pool. That covers it.

My favourite room is the entry, I think that to create an entrance in a house that narrow, we only had 4.8m of internal width to play with, to create such a formalised entrance, and separate public spaces from the private spaces, and to have it quite grand and just a sense of entrance, I think that was pretty incredible to do. A lot of the semis we'd worked on before had a staircase that I guess cut through the kitchen or cut through another part of the house and was almost like an afterthought. And I like the idea that it breaks up and divides the space. So I find it quite luxurious that you walk from your entertaining spaces, that big kitchen, living dining, external area through this marble forecourt.

So the design brief, funnily enough, was that he wanted it to look like it came out of a magazine. It needed to be an entertainer's house that was quite impressive. And he said it needed to have a wow factor. And then the brief, which was a little bit of a return brief from my side, it was something we spoke about a lot, was that it needed to feel quite bright. In the other duplexes that they've done before I was brought on after construction had started and everything had all kind of started going ahead. So with this one, I was brought on before the development application went in, and we were able to manipulate a lot of the spaces to increase window size and look out on the landscape setbacks. Yeah. That's pretty much the brie

Yes. So the main challenge from the outset concept was definitely light, and I felt that the spaces were too open plan and kind of lacked formality. So that was a challenge that we then solved and overcame by dividing up that entrance space, I think that was the most helpful, and then came the challenges of actual space. I mean, it's quite narrow and how to visually divide up the living and dining spaces so that they all felt special. We did that with the big Gervasoni pendant light and the artwork, they really ground each area as its own space, and then the kitchen with those beautiful mirrors that hide all of that joinery and just reflect back all of that gorgeous northern garden light. Another challenge we actually had, which turned out, as it sometimes does, to be our greatest achievement, was our little powder room. We really didn't want it to feel like it had been stuck underneath the staircase, but inevitably that's where we had to put it, yeah, so what we ended up doing was relieving all of those staircase lines. You can kind of see that the staircase is going up the back because it's got a piece of plywood curved over the entire roof, so in both of those ending and connecting lines of that staircase, concrete was hidden and therefore it’s you're like encapsulated in this entire big dark green Venetian plaster cave. You can't see any ceiling wall lines.

The stone choice was a really early love for both myself and the client. We love the fact that it was almost like an onyx. Like, you can kind of see through it, if that makes sense. And it's got this depth and character, but it also is quite airy and light. I always say it's ethereal.

Beautiful. I know. It has these little bronzy kind of veining throughout that then speaks back to our range hood. And it's got these kind of greys and white. It's stunning.

I definitely think it's nailed the brief with the wow factor. I think the final result is very striking. It's one of those projects that a lot of people are like, I wouldn't have expected to love this, but I do because it comes off as, like, maybe loud. But when you're in, it has so much personality and warmth. And I guess this mishmash of materials that actually feel so, like, rich but still quite homely.