Refined Simplicity – Mathoura Road by Carr

Grounded on simplicity, Mathoura Road sees the creation of a series of custom luxury residences, each elevated through an attuned refinement and restraint. Together with developer Moda, Carr combines a subtle tactile and textural approach to propose a timeless and elegant insertion into its milieu.

Sitting amongst similar scale homes in Melbourne’s south, Mathoura Road is nestled into Toorak and replaces an existing stately home with an equally proportioned series of considered residences. As a combined development with Moda, the homes reflect a heightened living experience, combining modern convenience with a refined and classical approach. The architectural symmetry signals a formally traditional approach, with controlled rigour ingrained into the planning and all interconnecting elements on site and internally. The homes have been deliberately crafted and the weighted masonry used emanates a sculptural presence on site, where openings appear to be carved out of its solid mass and ensuing deep reveals provide adequate solar abatement. Through a focus on comfort and longevity, Carr has seamlessly fused innovation within calmness.

Through a focus on comfort and longevity, Carr has seamlessly fused innovation within calmness.

Built by Flux and with landscaping by Jack Merlo, Mathoura Road is conceived from a holistic core. From site edge to site edge, every element has been considered, expressed through transitions – between inside and out, between built form and the natural – each interception offers a gesture of balance. Stepping back from the streetscape, the overall mass feels reduced and sensitive to its surrounding context, not wanting to impede on the retained historical charm of the area. Each level as its rises up the building is pulled further and further back, creating terrace areas that form part of the framing of the building the process. Every residence is then spread over one level only, ensuring no steps for an ease of movement and flow within each.

Six apartments in total occupy the site, each with their own distinct engagement with the site and the surrounds. The more traditional and formalised garden settings integrated into the building act as a reference to the other traditional residences and their gardens of the area, ensuring a sensitivity. The homes also sit near the Roy Grounds mid-century icon Moonbria and are intended as a respectful addition to that lineage, to ensure a continued relevance. A muted neutral palette plays on a grey tonality that then intercepts with the incoming light throughout the day, where handmade linear bricks combine with natural stone and textural timber to form a palette that references a sense of the familiar, as well as the refined.

Handmade linear bricks combine with natural stone and textural timber to form a palette that references a sense of the familiar, as well as the refined.

Mathoura Road elevates the everyday. Through Carr’s dedicated detailing and attention to enduring quality, the building becomes an integrated and time-wearing addition in place.