On New Zealand’s South Island, poised between the changeable expanse of Lake Wakatipu and the monumental rawness of the Remarkables (Kawarau) mountain range, is Matagouri, a residence by Fearon Hay Architects that draws from its striking natural setting, absorbing and counterbalancing it to cultivate deep sanctuary.

Mediating between breathtaking alpine outlooks and an atmosphere of rich domesticity, Matagouri finds its identity through elemental materiality and meticulous craftsmanship. A duality between the brutal beauty of its location and the pragmatics of crafting a resolved and innovative home have informed a place that harbours a poignant sense of living within the landscape.

ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS Fearon Hay Architects

PHOTOGRAPHY Sam Hartnett

BUILD Bayshore Builders

INTERIORS Fearon Hay Architects & Dawdy Brown

LANDSCAPE o2 Landscapes

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING Cuthbert Ashmore Consultants

GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING GeoSolve

Avenue Marceau Apartment has emerged from a contemporary design intervention by Hélène Van Marcke, rearranged for discerning modern living with an inherent respect for its heritage. “The owner’s bought the sixth-floor apartment and all the service rooms and spaces of the floor above,” Hélène Van Marcke explains. “The sixth floor was beautifully proportioned but needed some love, while the seventh floor needed to be fully demolished and rebuilt, including the roof structure!”

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ARCHITECTURE & INTERIOR DESIGN Hélène Van Marcke

PHOTOGRAPHY Thomas De Bruyne

‘A Piccolo House’ was realised in and engagement with Piccolo House and ERA-co.

Excerpt from book:

This book shines a light on the people, places and qualities that come together to define a Piccolo House. It narrates our journey in refinement and expresses across its chapters those distinctions that see an apartment transcend the limitations of design alone to create homes in sync with their urban village neighbourhoods. It champions the global relevance of the architects and interior designers who have been instrumental in understanding and interpreting the Piccolo philosophy harmoniously and within the context of each House so that they are independently expressive yet merit the same touchstones to their success. This book recognises the similarities across each Piccolo House by talking naturally to their common ground and is a manifesto exploring the way each iteration yields to the one before, always raising the benchmark for residential design through a dedication to creating homes that look and feel exceptional.

Occupying the last remaining parkside address in Melbourne’s tightly-held Domain Precinct Middleton Lane joins a unique class of iconoclastic Melbourne buildings to cultivate exceptional liveability.

Kew Garden House sees Robson Rak cultivate an enduring family home through the dovetailing of heritage and contemporary design within a picturesque garden setting.

This circa 1890s grand Victorian home, located in Melbourne’s leafy Kew, used to belong to the late Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. Now home to a young family of six, Kew Garden House gracefully mediates between the past, with its heritage facade still in-tact and period details peppered throughout, and present, as it unfolds to reveal a new modern pavilion at the rear.

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ARCHITECTURE & INTERIOR DESIGN Robson Rak

PHOTOGRAPHY Mark Roper

BUILD Warwick Constructions

LANDSCAPE DESIGN Mud Office

Creation of artist statement for solo exhibition at Cromwell House London 2023.

‘385 Gore Street is a partnership between Piccolo, renowned architecture practice Woods Bagot and distinguished interior design studio Hecker Guthrie. Our shared passion for quality, longevity and innovation – together with our long history of successful collaboration – has allowed us to set a new benchmark for inner-city living.

Occupying a covetable corner aspect, Gore Street embodies the civic and botanical atmosphere of its locale. Leaning into the charming qualities of its streetscape, a collection of abiding residences set within a lush garden setting has emerged.’

When Kim Bridgland, Co-Director of Edition Office, was asked by extended family to design a house in Mossy Point, a home that embodies the studio’s penchant for crafting buildings of graceful austerity unfolded, cultivated to foster a sense of clarity both internally and externally. Looking down over a topography of roofs, treetops, box gutters, back sheds and beyond to the endless expanse of the sea, Mossy Point House has emerged with a design language that overtly responds to aspect.

Nestled at the midpoint of a landscape that tapers towards the crescent-shaped coastline of the Tasman Sea, Mossy Point is a sleepy haven on the southern New South Wales shoreline. Swelling with holiday makers in the summer months, although without quite the same intensity as nearby Batemans Bay, it is a place with a strong community spirit and a resonant equanimity between nature and an established residential frontier. The elevated site captures these qualities and basks in the view of the ocean beyond the town. “In one sense it’s a challenging site,” admits Kim, “with part of the design focused on resolving the view. In another sense it’s extraordinary because of the view, which takes in the beach, bay and [Tomaga] river.”

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ARCHITECTURE, INTERIORS & STYLING Edition Office

PHOTOGRAPHY Rory Gardiner

BUILED Smith and Primmer

LANDSCAPE Florian Wild

ENGINEERING Geoff Metzler & Associates

JOINERY Matrix Joinery Solutions

Barwon Heads was a residence conceived long before it became a reality. Twenty years ago, its current owner implored the then-owner of the Barwon Heads site to sell it to her should it ever come up for sale. Five years ago it did, and Sarah and her husband purchased it with the hope of building an Australian beach house which will one day become their forever home. Surrounded by four family members who live on the same street, another family home behind and various aunts, uncles, godparents and cousins a stones throw away, the current iteration is an elegantly resolved, light-drenched home which mediates perfectly between large informal gatherings of friends and family and a discerning appreciation for antipodean design, personal sentimentality and art.

ARCHITECTURE & INTERE DESIGN Tecture

BUILDER Built by Wilson

FURNITURE ART & OBJECT Team Simone Haag

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Bethany Williamson

PHOTOGRAPHY Timothy Kaye

Muraba is a boutique property development brand which creates architecturally-led, multi-residential buildings inspired by their striking locations. Taking cues from the rising and setting of the sun and the natural rhythms of the surrounding landscape, Muraba environments are thoughtfully in tune with elevated modern lifestyles.

DEVELOPMENT Muraba

BRANDING Zaina

ARCHITECTURE RCR Arquitectes

INTERIOR STYLING Amanda Rodríguez

PHOTOGRAPHY Baptiste Le Quiniou

Akme (a derivative of ‘acme,’ meaning the highest point of achievement) is a Melbourne beauty salon transcending emblematic expectations in both atmosphere and aesthetics. Elegant and minimalist form unifies interiors, styling and branding to shape a place that eschews clinical design to cultivate an inviting sense of sanctuary in the heart of South Yarra’s urban milieu. Across two levels, a curation of neutral tones defines a considered approach to materiality which draws attention to natural patinas and textures, accentuating the tangible warmth and enduring beauty of each and imbuing harmony and balance throughout.

Akme falls effortlessly into rhythm with discerning lifestyle patterns, advocating for luxurious self-care through design gestures which place emphasis on wellness and ritual and allow clients to rediscover their inner and outer allure as the epitome of natural beauty.

PHOTOGRAPHY Timothy Kaye

BUILD MIC Projects

Brighton Residence by Melbourne-based interior design practice Hecker Guthrie channels Southern Italy’s artisanal qualities, tactile materiality and earthy palette while retaining the ornamentation of its Victorian heritage.

The family home on the bay has been transformed through a design methodology that mediates between period features and new additions to impart a radiant warmth and an abiding sense of sanctuary. “We wanted to explore the concept of a contemporary Italian country home while still having a space that spoke of the heritage of the 1800’s Victorian home here in Melbourne,” Hecker Guthrie interior designer Caroline Hedley says. The resulting home features two disparate yet complementary volumes — the original at the front and a modern addition to the rear — unified by colour but respectfully differentiated by materiality.

INTERIOR DESIGN Hecker Guthrie

ARCHITECTURE Cera Stribley

BUILDER Lawler Property Services Co.

PHOTOGRAPHYShannon McGrath

SIX timeless HOMES defined by SIMPLICITY and rare EXCLUSIVITY. The result of our PERSONAL journey to CURATING the perfect home in the HEART of TOORAK.

DEVELOPMENT Healey & Co.

ARCHITECTURE & INTERIOR DESIGN Cera Stribley

LANDSCAPING Jack Merlo

The name Glencairn conjures images of Scottish moors and a landscape of flint grey and sharp yet rolling edges. In this case, however, Glencairn is the name given to a heritage-listed bluestone estate in Coburg, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne. Elegantly blending past and present, the 19th-century villa is a stately residence with covert architectural innovation that stands on what was once an impressive landholding.

‘This property used to extend so much further, and it’s quite an anomaly in Coburg,’ says Dayne Trower of Trower Falvo Architects, who worked on the five-year resurrection of Glencairn with co-director Simona Falvo.

PHOTOGRAPHY Ben Hosting

Creation of artist statement for group exhibition in London May/June, 2023.

Creation of artist statement for solo exhibition at Cromwell House, London 2023.

Potts Point by Tamsin Johnson is a home that elevates the classical to the cultural through a curation of antipodean design influences.

Like its vibrant surrounds, Potts Point is a home that harbours a coalescence of rooms and creative leanings. With its crisp white facade, slate roof tiles and established palms, the 19th-century Victorian terrace alludes to the charm of Chateau Marmont mellowed by its distinctly urban pied-à-terre simplicity.

When designer Tamsin Johnson first went to see the site, the interventions required to bring this home once again into rhythm with contemporary living patterns quickly unfolded. “I wanted to reinstate the bones of what would have originally been there while not recreating the past,” she says of the “contemporary twist” that the home has embraced.