No WOWOWA venture is full and not using a splash of color — or a number of — and their latest renovation of a brick duplex in St Kilda East may simply be a masterclass.
‘This house radiates character,’ explains Monique Woodward, co-director of WOWOWA. ‘So the palette needed to sing!’
Color on this house is choreographed with rhythm, distinction and pockets of enjoyment. It crescendos in areas of exercise — just like the kitchen, the place the island bench combines emerald inexperienced stone and vibrant orange, in opposition to a backdrop of pink and purple cabinetry — whereas the ceilings and partitions characteristic terracotta and blush tones.
‘This many colors in a single spot could sound chaotic on paper, however they’re rigorously chosen to sit down in concord,’ says Monique. ‘It’s all about balancing boldness with respiration room.’
Certainly, whereas wealthy purples, earthy reds, vibrant orange and dusty pinks take centre stage, these radiant hues are softened by light eucalyptus inexperienced and — ‘very out of character for WOWOWA’ — impartial white partitions (albeit crammed with vibrant artwork).
Collectively these operatic hues work with WOWOWA’s imaginative and prescient to amplify the house’s authentic quirky allure, whereas weaving in new kinds that really feel respectful and ‘delightfully sudden’.
When the Melbourne structure agency took on the venture in 2021, the Nineteen Forties clinker brick duplex got here with the same old runsheet: stable bones, wealthy character, however ‘just about at capability’. Briefly, it wanted a intelligent rework to understand its full potential.
With no house within the yard to increase behind the property, WOWOWA designed a renovation that expanded the house outwards, utilising the untapped house within the facet yard.
‘Navigating tight web site constraints was a puzzle,’ says Monique. ‘The rear was maxed out, and the facet yard wasn’t working onerous sufficient. The answer was to relocate the entry to the facet, flip the entrance backyard right into a social oasis, and create move the place there was none.’
The place the facet yard as soon as was now sits a brand new hall wing, full with stacked laundry and a examine nook that opens up into a brand new dramatic double-height dwelling, eating and kitchen house, with giant rear home windows that result in the small yard.
The bedrooms stay within the authentic a part of the home, every having undergone a WOWOWA-style spruce.
Consistent with the period of the house, the extension is a seamless continuation of heat purple brick from the shopper’s grandfather’s brick manufacturing facility — the proper precursor to the daring hues inside.
On the rear of the home, new pleated brickwork performs off the house’s deco lineage, taking its conventional stepped kind and reinterpreting it with a up to date, sculptural twist.
‘The brand new geometry is slender, respectful and playfully exact,’ says Monique. ‘Sitting like a sublime extension and mirror of what was all the time there, solely dreamier.
‘The complete venture is a dialogue between then and now.’
Nothing on this house is positioned, painted or designed with out which means. Components of the previous house, like the unique timber subfloor and leftover terrazzo tiles from a earlier toilet venture, have discovered new life within the renovation, whereas the color palette cheerfully displays the shopper’s aversion for something too sterile or closed off.
‘Small properties will be mighty!’ says Monique. ‘You don’t want huge sq. footage to create an area that’s joyful, beneficiant and filled with character.’
An edited model of this story initially appeared in The Design Information Journal Concern 03. Subscribe to our print journal right here.
