Bold and Open – Mayfair Street by Whispering Smith

As a bold engagement with the site, Mayfair Street combines a confident simplicity with a knowing restraint of form, space and light to create key connections between the natural and built elements. Whispering Smith works in close alignment with an impassioned owner to capture an expression of self in the home’s design.

Equipped with a clear vision for the site and how they wanted the home to feel, the owner encouraged the integration of a weighted solidity through a softened lens. By combining bold, formal cantilever statements with a more intimate connection to materiality, Whispering Smith overlays a sense of clarity and calm, bringing references to textural subtleties that engage with incoming light throughout the day. Using rammed earth and recycled concrete from existing footpaths, the brief evolved to integrate a combination of both new and used elements. Coming together with a sense of consciousness of its impact, the home aligns itself with a sustainable agenda, despite an outer appearance of dominance.

By combining bold, formal cantilever statements with a more intimate connection to materiality, Whispering Smith overlays a sense of clarity and calm, bringing references to textural subtleties that engage with incoming light throughout the day.

Allowing for interconnections between the landscape and building was imperative to how the home functioned, softening the harder insertions across the site. Designed by M&B Johnston Building and Landscapes, the curated and formal arrangement of plantings integrates a sense of balance through the life they bring to the spaces. As the home comes together in the form of bold gestures of a linear nature, maintaining a consistency in clean lines throughout was key. In the heightened refinement of how junctions come together, nature is a calming and welcomed addition. With an internal courtyard bringing natural light into key spaces, the changing climate is felt from within.

Refining the home’s lived experience, a collaboration with Living Edge aids in completing the overall vision. Among the foundations of robustness that comprise the home, a collection of curated pieces brings in warmth and a further commitment to craft. With clear vistas positioned deliberately to connect to the landscape, each space feels voluminous and generous, with room left for movement between zones. Subtle half-level transitions navigate the sloping terrain in Mount Claremont, ensuring the form feels naturally settled across the site. Reaching out toward the street, the main cantilever acts like an outstretched arm, welcoming an engagement from approach.

Among the foundations of robustness that comprise the home, a collection of curated pieces brings in warmth and a further commitment to craft.

Proposed as an enduring home of permanence, Mayfair Street carves its own presence in place. Whispering Smith instils the loftiness of a gallery or public space, which is then warmed and given an enriching depth through considered layers to result in a remarkably presented home.