Displaying posts from December, 2020

“The Cable House transforms a small, dark workers’ cottage into a contemporary family home, finding elegant solutions to the challenges posed by the dense urban environment, narrow south-facing site and heritage context.”

Light is drawn into the space through tall windows and skylights while the sensitive roofline sits sympathetically with the neighbours. Vines trail lazily over steel cables inside and out softening the structure over time. By Tom Roberston Architects.

“Working with a Grade II listed property like this one on Harley Street pushed us to design within the confines of a 1750s layout and its 19th c. alterations. The end result was a marriage of styles that highlight the property’s historical qualities within a 21st century palette.”

And isn’t a successful marriage what we all desire? The beautiful Harley Street project by Red Deer.

Photography by Billy Bolton.

Another designer who can do no wrong and whom I have admired for years is Hubert Zandberg and this is his fabulously curated London apartment. Speckled with afternoon sun welcomed in through oversized, west-facing windows, Hubert Zandberg’s new White City apartment is testimony to his design approach: that a space can be infused with character through seemingly disparate items collected over time and place. The 100 square metre apartment is situated in Television Centre in White City. The new-built provided Hubert with the perfect blank slate against which to display some of his collected pieces, antiques and art in a new, dynamic composition. He furnished the ‘developer’s white box’ using key items from the HZ permanent collection, including vintage Modernist objet and works of art, as well as prototype furniture from the By HZI line, such as a sofa, several cabinets, sideboards, a custom bed and shelving. The end result is a bespoke, greatly personal space that underscores the designer’s belief that smart styling can transform a space with very limited architectural intervention.

On a previous occasion when I featured Barcelona-based interior designer María Lladó‘s work I wrote “Queen of the vignette, lover of chairs, doyenne of the eclectic. The home as theatre or is that theatre set?” That was back in 2014. Thankfully nothing has changed!

“The McNamara House is a new addition to a heritage Federation-era home in Malvern East. Sitting discreetly behind the original, the new pavilion is at once subservient and subversive to the existing building. Where the new is contemporary and welcoming, the old is formal and stately. Through the contrast between the grandeur of the old and the pared-back elegance of the new, a sense of order and refinement is created.”

When good design is subservient design. Adjunct as opposed to distraction. It’s not always about the “Look at me” upstart. Sometimes it’s about turning the expected on its head, about simple being disruptive. By Tom Roberston Architects.