Calming Hideaway – LD Studio by CJH Studio

As a newly built home, LD Residence was able to be sculpted specifically to the needs and aesthetic of the owners from inception, ensuring every detail and consideration caters to their brief. CJH Studio overlays a textured and restrained approach, integrating a variety of finishes within a similar softened tonality to create a home that feels disconnected from the surrounds.

Set within the inner north of Melbourne’s city, LD Residence replaces an existing building on site. Home to a growing family, a certain foundation of robustness was needed within the materiality to ensure an absorption of the knocks of time, without compromising on the overall feeling of the home. In imagining the future chapters of the residence, allowing for flexibility within the planning and an ingrained openness between key areas enables the home to be altered to suit. CJH Studio balances the need for openness with the need to retreat, while maintaining a similar strength of form and continuity of warmth throughout.

The creation of calm was a driving force behind the project, shaping the core philosophies of materiality, volume and scale.

Buffering the outer edges of the home, a newly conceived landscape design by Nathan Burkett Landscape Architecture ensures the entire site feels connected and imagined from the same concept. With framed views out into the dedicated green space, the house is seen as a retreat, where the main entry door becomes a portal that transports once having passed through it. The connection between the natural and the built elements feels balanced, and the encasing use of timber together with warm light tones binds each of the spaces within.

The creation of calm was a driving force behind the project, shaping the core philosophies of materiality, volume and scale. As the backdrop to everyday family life, and the typified chaos that ensues, the home needed to be low maintenance and facilitate the ebbs and flows of a growing family. The neutralising of the palette was a key part of that, ensuring a counter to the animation that would fill the home. In crafting a private residence, the frontage remains, concealing the inner workings of the house while providing the atmosphere of a sanctuary within. The extensive joinery and use of timber helps conceal the supporting amenities and storage needed, while also integrating functionality into the architecture of the home.

CJH Studio balances the need for openness with the need to retreat, while maintaining a

Optimising the site to better align with adjacent city views, LD Residence captures the personality of inner urban life in Melbourne within a family-focused context. CJH Studio balances cool and warm elements to create a new character and presence.