A Vibrant Celebration of Art - Polychrome House by Amber Road

A curated collaboration between Amber Road, Lymesmith and Alicia Sciberras sees a formally lifeless Cronulla home transformed into a vibrant backdrop for a well-meaning and colour-filled life.

Rejecting the bland and safe residential typology, Polychrome House celebrates colour and a client’s true love of art. Agitated by the traditional, safe and monotone homes that seem to exist a-plenty amongst the Australian residential landscape, the client’s brief was simple – to create a home that embraced their love of colour, to allow for a flexible functionality of spaces internally and to infuse an individual approach to their specific domestic story. Amongst the far-reaching diversity on this planet, there too lies diversity in how each of us lives, and Amber Road saw the opportunity and responsibility to aid in carving out spaces that responded to their particular client.

Rejecting the bland and safe residential typology, Polychrome House celebrates colour and a client’s true love of art.

Self-described as extremely social with a large extended family, the home had to respond to the client’s lifestyle, and be a conduit for their life and its various requirements. In this case, the traditional residential mould did not fit, and it needed a serious rework. As a result, the existing two-bedroom, two-bathroom home needed to be re-planned internally. Through careful deliberation, the existing lower living room wall was relocated to align with the wall on the upper floor, part of the garage space was given back to the kitchen area, and various other internal walls were relocated to allow its transformation into a three-bed, three-bath home that worked for its inhabitants. Their home places the communal, the act of coming together, at the heart, so the kitchen and living spaces are vital.

Amber Road saw the opportunity and responsibility to aid in carving out spaces that responded to their particular client.

Their home places the communal, the act of coming together, at the heart, so the kitchen and living spaces are vital.

Key to the success of Polychrome House is the collaboration between Amber Road, mural and colour experts Lymesmith, and stylist Alicia Sciberras. Stemming from the client’s emboldened love of art, and a sense of vibrancy, it was an obvious choice to enlist Lymesmith and allow them to interpret the home, its owners, their life, their drivers and also the area that the home sits amongst. Known for their responsive approach to land and context, they took cues from the aerial landscape of the area, and responded with full wall murals that then became part of the backdrop for the objects and furniture within the spaces. The result is one of intense vibrancy, where the enthusiasm for socialising is clear.

A curated collaboration between Amber Road, Lymesmith and Alicia Sciberras.

Throughout, the approach to colour is bold, and also entices a sense of movement and rigor. Formally a ‘rabbit warren’, the newly opened up home allows for a bringing together of diversity yet with a sense of shared personality around a central living and cooking space. The perfect combination of client, designer and artist has resulted the perfect marrying of art, architecture and welcomed warmth. Polychrome House is a true celebration of colour and animation, intently far from anything resembling bland.