Table of contents for August - September 2021 in Belle

IN PARTNERSHIP with leading furniture and design brand Fanuli, Belle is delighted to announce the finalists in this year’s Interior Design Awards. Celebrating its 11th edition, the prestigious program recognises excellence in Australian interior design and decoration. This year’s awards garnered more than 290 submissions, reflecting the remarkable vision and vitality of the Australian design industry today, especially in the face of a very challenging year. Thank you to all of the talented designers who entered, and to our panel of expert judges – Saskia Havekes, Louise Olsen, Stephen Ormandy, Jean Wright, Karen McCartney, Lucy Montgomery, Steve Cordony, Fabio Fanuli, Sandro Fanuli, Marco Fanuli and Harry Roberts. Winning designers and their work will be published in the October issue of Belle – on sale August 23. The Finalists RESIDENTIAL INTERIOR…

SÃO PAULO LEGENDARY LOSS Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1928-2021) was a great Brazilian architect who won the 2006 Pritzker Architecture Prize and, in 2017, was lauded as a ‘living legend’ and awarded the RIBA Gold Medal. His early houses, Casa Masetti and Casa Millán (pictured), illustrate the powerful beauty of raw concrete, which alongside large public works, such as the renovation of the Pinacoteca do Estado, a fine-arts museum in São Paulo, form his legacy. MASSA LOMBARDA EARTH MOVING In a coming together of technology and clay, the Tecla Progetti (left) is a 3D-printed model in raw earth by Mario Cucinella Architects studio in Massa Lombarda, Ravenna. Working with 3D printers WASP (World’s Advanced Saving Project), the process generates close to zero carbon emissions and uses materials available on site.…

LOOKING TO APPEAL to an ‘eccentric, multicultural demographic’ in Melbourne’s Windsor, the property owners called on architect and interior designer Maria Danos to help bring to life this high-quality, small-scale townhouse development. How did you become involved with this project and what was the client’s brief? Maria Danos: I was thrilled when approached by my clients after they purchased the property in inner Melbourne, seeking a local architect to assist in the delivery of their first speculative twin home development. What were the challenges of the space and how did you resolve them? MD: Conceptually I wanted to present a visually ‘permeable’ building to the street, to encourage the prevalent spirited level of social engagement and capture northern light deep into the dwellings. The exterior facade is a balance of…

HAYDEN BAGNALL of design studio Baldwin & Bagnall and his partner, Adam Lindsay, channelled their love of art, design and entertaining at their beachside apartment, creating a crisp and modern canvas on which to layer eclectic, expressive pieces that reflect their personalities and produce a welcoming space for visitors. What were the requirements for your home and what initially appealed about the space? We wanted it to be comfortable for the two of us, with a guest bedroom, two bathrooms, a great kitchen in which to cook for plenty of people, and wall space for art. Only one street back from the beach, the apartment has a generous 130-square-metre footprint and a large north-west terrace – plenty of room to play with! There are only two apartments on the floor…

MELBOURNE SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES Jeremy Eaton’s UV-exposed fabric photographs channel the erotic charge suggested by the lighting of a cigarette – a gesture coded and recurring in gay cinema – by stitching together smoking scenes from films such as Pink Narcissus, Before Night Falls and A Single Man. This approach to the sexualised object – as in Through the hand to the mouth (left) – aligns the artist with sculptor Naomi Eller, whose anthropomorphised ceramic weights are showing alongside his work in a paired exhibition at LON Gallery. Until July 31. longallery.com BENDIGO RUMINATIONS Titled after 13th-century poet and mystic Rumi’s paean to the power of friendship, intellectual synergy and spiritual bonds, ‘Soul FURY’ finds kinship across a globe-spanning group of 16 female artists, including Shireen Taweel, Naiza Khan…

01 INSPIRING SPACES [Luxe season] BEEFBAR, ATHENS Monaco-based Humbert & Poyet, one of my favourite architectural firms, have unveiled the latest Beefbar outpost (above and right) in Athens within the glamorous Four Seasons’ Astir Palace. Drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape, the natural elements of marble, terracotta, timber and rattan create a textural and layered design which mirrors the surrounding Mediterranean. Add to that executive chef Thierry Paludetto’s ultra-tasty yet simple food and you have a match made in paradise. humbertpoyet.com CULTURAL COMMUNE In a two-day experiential hotel takeover in May at the Paramount House Hotel (above), Semi Permanent and Highsnobiety brought together global artists, designers and creators to present their vision for the future. The talent line-up included menswear brand director Melvin Tanaya, artist Louise Zhang, and poet and Indigenous art educator Dakota…

A PRIZED CHINA COLLECTION takes pride of place in an apartment reconfigured to enlighten dark spaces and rationalise the flow. Designer Adelaide Bragg also infused the interiors in a refreshing palette of caramel, blue, green and white. How did you become involved with this project and what was the client’s brief? Our client is a long-standing friend and her daughter is one of our senior designers. She purchased an established apartment which had wonderful bones but was somewhat dark. Moving from a large family home she wanted to create an oasis while adjusting to apartment living. Our client wished to create a sense of space within the confines of the footprint with changes to the floor plan to update and maximise the use of the areas. What were the challenges of…

“THE RESULT IS A SEAMLESS, SOPHISTICATED INTERIOR DESIGNED ALONG APPEALINGLY FLUID LINES …” GLEAMING FINISHING TOUCHES of golden metals and mustard yellows set against warm white walls highlight the newly spacious and curvaceous interiors wrought by interior designer Greg Natale in this apartment on stunning Sydney Harbour. What was the brief? The clients, a couple with two sons, sought Greg Natale to renovate their two-storey, three-bedroom penthouse apartment in Walsh Bay. Their brief was for a modern design that featured ‘plenty of curves’, European furniture and a palette of soft pink, grey and yellow. What were the challenges of the space and how did you resolve them? The home required a completely new design and major structural work to address underutilised and awkward spaces. The downstairs rooms were resized and…

Just as Alice was transported to her wonderland after falling down that rabbit hole, an equally colourful and fascinating world awaits those who step across the threshold into Villa Carmelina, the grand 1880s Victorian Italianate terrace home of architect Scott Weston and journalist Andrew Hornery in Sydney’s Paddington. Named in honour of Andrew’s late Maltese mother, the couple spent three years transforming this once-derelict deceased estate that they’d bought in 2016. “From the moment we first walked into the house it resonated deeply with me,” says Andrew. “It had a unique soul and I could see us living there, but exactly how that would happen – logistically – was something I relied entirely on Scott’s expertise for.” Not surprisingly, Scott rose to the challenge “that he approached collaboratively when it…

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AS A YOUNG MAN, Gianmatteo Romegialli had two passions: a love of architecture passed down from his parents who had a practice in the northern Italian town of Morbegno where he grew up, and trial, a motorcycle off-road sport at which he became a national champion. Gianmatteo draws an analogy. “Every piece of the motorcycle is precision designed with necessity and aesthetics in mind and has to function perfectly, like architecture,” he says. A motorcycle also embodies a sense of freedom and Gianmatteo’s spirit of adventure led him to Australia as a graduate architect. “I had seen Glenn Murcutt’s Kempsey House in a magazine and its relationship to the landscape was new to me. In Italy there is always a historical context to factor in,” he says. Gianmatteo’s colleague and travelling…

SPARKLING FEATURES designed to play up natural light, including a translucent fibreglass installation and polished plaster walls, enhance this three-level Melbourne townhouse with interiors conceived by interior designer Fiona Lynch for a design-savvy client with a penchant for luminosity. How did you become involved with this project and what was the client’s brief? The client had been following our work for some time and was a fan of a residential project in Fitzroy within a converted boot factory. Now a surgeon, he had studied architecture, so his interest in gestural elements and eclectic pieces of furniture with intriguing form had to resonate throughout the home. He wanted to create a luminous sanctuary that capitalised upon the natural light afforded by a generous balcony and courtyard beneath it. So walls in…

Melbourne design studio Kennedy Nolan have a refreshing take on the value of the pool in residential environments. Their philosophy honours it not just as a means of enjoyment, but also as a body of water that can be celebrated passively from afar in the colder months. At this house in one of Melbourne’s most prestigious inner suburbs, there’s a clever, unobstructed scenic quality to the pool as it runs close to the coping and almost flush to the architecture, making for some walk-on-water optics. It’s a glossy liquid sheet that sets the scene for the owners who access the house through a cloistered walkway that runs along its length. The residence, restored and upgraded for a couple and their child, is light years away from its 1800s roots and…

Luxury means different things to different people. For Shelley Craft, television personality and owner of this home in the Byron Bay region, it was being able to tweak the design on an almost daily basis before the build started in February 2020, resulting in the ‘true magic’ that unfolds once inside the gates of the property. Occupying the site of the old Byron Bay whaling station the intention was for the house to respect the industrial heritage of the area both in its architecture and materials. Constructed of brick, timber, sandstone and steel it has a timeless feel. When the project was in the planning stages with Paul Uhlmann Architects, Shelley called in interior designer Jase Sullivan, a former Belle contributor who has worked internationally. “We have crossed paths over…

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STUDIO? Warm and layered, with a great energy. We are lucky enough to be located on the ground floor of a 1930s apartment building on the fringe of the Botanic Gardens in South Yarra. We share the building with residential neighbours which gives it a nice sense of community. WHAT APPEALED TO YOU ABOUT THE SPACE? The interior is charming and homely. As an apartment, it’s the perfect setting to layer our collection of art, furniture and objects. The sunroom has great street frontage overlooking Robin Boyd’s iconic Domain Tower. Morning light streams into the studio and it’s easy to get distracted by people going about their daily hustle. Our conference room is cosy with a fireplace to sit in front of for meetings in…