Darling Point – George Livissianis

Words by Bronwyn Marshall
Photography by Tom Ferguson
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As a veritable playground of experimentation, Darling Point sees an unusual coming together of textures and finishes that reference a global spirit.

Coming from a comfortable past relationship with the client, George Livissianis reimagines Darling Point as an apartment that reflects an experimentation and an openness. Having worked together on numerous hospitality projects, the Mediterranean influence was imminently anticipated, and it was a shared want to explore texture, light and spatial arrangements that saw the final result come together. Taking cues from the typical taverna-style restaurant, a relaxed, calming, soft and less structured aesthetic emerged.

Coming from a comfortable past relationship with the client, George Livissianis reimagines Darling Point as an apartment that reflects an experimentation and an openness.

Darling Point is a curated space of collected and storied items, items that evoke a sense of nostalgia and connect to memories.

Built by Chichu Constructions, together with joinery by Inde Studio, the focus of the apartment centres around experience. Much akin to the draw of a hospitality venue, it is the immersion in the exotic, the artisanal and the textural that heightens and rouses, and replicating that activation was important. Speaking to his engagement on the project, George says, “Jonathan and I have been friends since we were kids and having worked on all of his restaurants it innately led me to helping him with his apartment. Because I know him so well and I know his aesthetic and what he is attracted to, it was a natural process.” Having been immersed in the design of Brisbane’s Greca at the time, he adds that the restaurant “really did influence the direction for the apartment, except that we used more sophisticated materials, which made sense as he was drawn to them as a residential interpretation of our work together.”

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Having worked together on numerous hospitality projects, the Mediterranean influence was imminently anticipated, and it was a shared want to explore texture, light and spatial arrangements that saw the final result come together.

Built by Chichu Constructions, together with joinery by Inde Studio, the focus of the apartment centres around experience.

Darling Point is a curated space of collected and storied items, items that evoke a sense of nostalgia and connect to memories. The apartment is dotted with artwork from friends, furniture and lighting collected along the way and from many restaurants curated. The kitchen is designed open to allow for a clear connection with the living areas of the home, and as an expression of what the owner holds dear as a restaurateur and host. Bringing each of these elements together is the materiality. George explains, “from a palette perspective I’ve always been very minimal and simple. I love joinery and the finer details are where I find strength. The apartment really needed some texture so that it didn’t feel synthetic, and that is how the lime render came about. While Greca is more detailed(as a reference), the apartment is deliberately sharper and more refined. There’s a balance between textures, the walls and the minimal approach to joinery.”

Taking cues from the typical taverna-style restaurant, a relaxed, calming, soft and less structured aesthetic emerged.

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The apartment is dotted with artwork from friends, furniture and lighting collected along the way and from many restaurants curated.

Together with the lime washed walls, smoked ash joinery and matched oak flooring sit together in unison, while red onyx tone in the bathroom and verdi vera in the kitchen add textural depth and richness. Key to enlivening these spaces is the interplay with light, George describes. “Light is always a big thing for me. You get really great western light in the apartment and beautiful morning light at the banquette area, and we wanted to capture that. It’s all about planning and about being open and connected as a space.” Viewing everything through a global lens, his openness to newness in process, finish or approach has also always held him in good stead. He adds, “it’s really about an instinctive reaction and developing it based on what the palette and finish feel they should be. Everything is refined along the way, and I am never fixed on anything and always open to looking at something more open-mindedly. I’m very fluid until it’s built.”

With a practice that comprises half hospitality and retail work and half residential projects, it is the interconnection between these that keeps George’s approach dynamic. His process, he says, “is always the same. I always start with planning and sketch design, and I can’t wait to pick up a pencil and start drawing. I’ve always been very transparent when it comes to our process as we have to deal with so many brands, and we’re involved in creating varied experiences that are always changing. So, we have to be adaptable, and you become more of a chameleon.” Darling Point shows this empathetic and influenced approach, one open to a myriad of stimuli and not committed to one strict or rigid style, allowing an expression of the owner to come through.