I love the idea of escaping for a few days to a 5 star hotel whether far afield or just in the next city. An escape from the everyday to somewhere special. What I love even better is a getaway to a beautifully crafted home like Durham House, a unique alternative to luxury hotel-style accommodation. Luckily this award-winning house by architects Owen and Vokes and Peters (now Vokes and Peters) is less than an hours drive from my own in the bohemian, inner-city Brisbane suburb of West End. The 1920s worker’s cottage has recently undergone an extensive but sympathetic renovation and is the perfect base for exploring all that Brisbane has to offer. There is only one problem though. I won’t want to leave at the end of my stay!

It’s like I say week after week. If you have to drag your sorry self into work on a Saturday then it certainly helps if it’s somewhere stylish and this architectural “shop front” is one cool workspace.

Tasmanian architectural studio Room11 moved from their “spacious rooftop studio in the middle of the city to a street interface, seeking greater engagement with the public. The petite space is left as is, sprayed black with a singular intervention, a hovering timber display and work box.”

Clever, clever, clever.

Clever, flexible small space solutions when every square metre counts. Studio apartment living by Melbourne-based Architecture Architecture.

Designed as a live/work space for an artist the standout design feature of this home is the freestanding OSB shelving system that rises over four floors with access from each level. The first two floors are devoted the studio space and storage with racking system for paintings and the cube storage while climbing higher brings you to the living areas on the top two floors. Modern minimalism contained within a 100 year old shell. DL House by Nuno Alves de Carvalho of Portuguese architecture and design firm URBAstudios.

I can’t help it. I always seem to lose myself again and again in the fabulous French apartments. Have you noticed how vibrant, how effortlessly stylish French interior design is at the moment? Case in point. La Dolce Vita by Paris-based Agence Véronique Cotrel. Magnifique.