Favorites

The designers recreated the carport as a dining area, arranging the space with a living wall, a painted brick wall, a tk ceiling with recessed lighting, a teak table and bench, and director chairs.

Dobrinski designed and crafted an industrial-style light fixture to suspend above the quartzite island. The fixture is 12 feet long and features wood doweling, copper fittings, and loosely strung pendants. The leather-upholstered bar chairs that pull up to the island are from West Elm.

The island helps to define and separate the open-plan kitchen, dining, and living areas.

In the kitchen, designers Christina Valencia and Kele Dobrinski of Colossus Mfg. created a 14-foot island with a waterfall edge made of platinum-gray quartzite.

The primary bedroom is located on the second floor. As the couple notes, "the house is designed so that you quickly pass through the second floor on your way to the studio."

Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit

Clever joinery units throughout the home are strategically located to avoid unnecessary clutter. The long study on the ground floor—which runs in front of the children’s bedrooms—has plenty of desk space for all four children to do homework and study.

The study on the first floor is in the more private principal bedroom wing of the home. Like the rest of the rooms, it features bespoke American oak timber joinery.

The first-floor living room features a dramatic fireplace with a concrete surround and solid brass shelves that frame the wood storage and shelving.

The kitchen and dining area opens out to a narrow balcony that overlooks the internal courtyard and has views over the bay. The DC09 dining chairs are by Inoda + Sveje for Miyazaki Chair Company, and sourced from Great Dane Furniture.

The central north-facing courtyard allows natural light and sun to penetrate the home’s core. As the site is relatively small, the more expansive outdoor space is found on the roof terrace.

Each of the four children’s bedrooms opens out to the internal courtyard and pool area. Two bathrooms are located in between the bedrooms, with each bathroom shared by two children.

The basement living room is smaller and more private, offering a dark space for watching movies as a family. Like the first-floor living room, the television is concealed by a timber screen. The artwork is by Columbian-born, Melbourne-based painter Julian Clavijo.

The sitting room on the ground floor features a Mangas Space Plait modular sofa by Patricia Urquiola for Spanish brand Gan, from Hub Furniture in Melbourne. “The materials had to essentially take a back seat to the view and the internal soft furnishings, which is where all the vibrancy and color would come from, along with the occupants and what they would bring to the table,” says architect Tony Vella. “A clear undertaking from our client was to avoid painted, rendered, tiled, or applied finishes at all costs—which was not an easy task!”

A sliding timber door elegantly conceals both the television and storage in the first-floor living room.

The lounge room on the first floor features Fly chairs in white oiled oak by SPACE Copenhagen for &Tradition, sourced from Great Dane Furniture, and a Bart swivel armchair by Moooi from Space Furniture.

The living room on the first floor is the main family gathering space. “It is the collection zone for togetherness, and offers an abundance of natural light and extended views out to the bay and beyond,” says architect Tony Vella.