Retiring Retreat – Music Box by Multiplicity

Balancing the opposing personalities and stylistic tendencies of its owners, Music Box brings together elements harmoniously within a modest form with its own unique identity. Multiplicity carefully navigates an awkward site, taking cues from the terrain and natural landscape to craft a forever home of secluded privacy.

As a culmination of a brief many years in the making, Music Box is an ideal place of retreat – a bespoke home in which the inhabitants intend to spend the rest of their lives. Sitting in front of a narrow parkland reserve to its rear, the home nestles into its quiet suburban surrounds. A modest insertion, it respectfully acknowledging the scale of neighbouring homes in the area. Wrapped in timber predominantly, the natural and textural finish to the building’s otherwise regularity of form aims to blend in with the treelined streets. Multiplicity draws from the clients’ conception of what it means to live well, garnering an approach that continues that legacy in place.

With one of the clients being more minimalist and the other a collector, finding a central and equalising point from which to propose materiality and progress with planning was challenging.

Situated on a triangle-shaped allotment, Music Box is built by Frank and sees several rectilinear forms come together across the site. Despite the irregular bounding edges, the home had to fit a multitude of elements within while remaining a complementary addition to the rhythm of the street. Though the seemingly controlled outer form alludes to that carrying internally, a more fluid approach is overlaid. With one of the clients being more minimalist and the other a collector, finding a central and equalising point from which to propose materiality and progress with planning was challenging. To carefully retain an expression of both its owners, a ‘push and pull’ approach sees compromises made on either side for the greater whole. In the end, responding to place and integrating both of their characters provided the answer, which is borne out in the resulting home.

Clad in Australian blackbutt timber, the outer shell is intended to patina and grey over time, weathering beautifully in response to the environment. Internally, timber is also used extensively to add warmth and a natural connection that responds to the proximity to the untouched landscapes to its rear. Through a richness in materials throughout, there exists depth through a tactility in each of the inserted elements and, together with custom joinery allowing for storage and displays, there is a sense of order and compartmentalisation that connects the home.

Through a richness in materials throughout, there exists depth through a tactility in each of the inserted elements and, together with custom joinery allowing for storage and displays, there is a sense of order and compartmentalisation that connects the home.

As its own subtle insertion amongst existing surrounds, Music Box is both responsive and expressive. Multiplicity allows for the layering of personality within the spaces, while ensuring the shell and its parts are an extension of those who reside within.