Openly Social – Vaucluse Residence by Pollak Design

Embedding purpose, the opening up of Vaucluse Residence’s previously disparate planning creates the ideal entertainer’s home. Pollak Design draws on the animation and personalities of its owners and creates considered connections internally, while using colour and pattern to create movement and diversity throughout.

Despite its proximity to Sydney Harbour, Vaucluse Residence originally was devoid of connections outward and almost turned its back on its opportunistic views. In addressing this first-hand and through a reconfiguration internally, the previous home is opened up to allow for a better considered sense of flow internally, while also addressing its surrounding access to the natural. From its monochromatic base, a layered approach brings textures, forms and tactility to the interior environment, elevating the previous home and enriching the everyday. Pollak Design proposes custom pockets of retreat dotted throughout the resulting spaces, inserting moments of the unexpected and creating an element of discovery in the home.

By reimagining the kitchen into an open and welcoming social hub of the home, other surrounding living and dining zones all pivot and feed into one another.

Combining forces, Vaucluse Residence was built by One Up Building, together with joinery by Bondi Kitchens, with a keen focus to re-sculpt the interior environment. Overlaying a contemporary lightness and openness, newly created zones open up to one another, with visual access a key connector. A calm and restrained base of finishes ensure each more expressive piece of furniture, artwork or lighting is showcased without sitting in competition to the architecture in any way. While the new works open up the interior, they also ensure an opening up of the façade where possible to engage with the enviable aspect and reinforce a sense of place through visual reminders.

Underpinning the new works is a sustainable foundation forming the base for all resulting decisions. Enhancing movement, increased ventilation and access to natural light reinforces a lessened reliance on outside energy sources, while select recycled materiality is integrated throughout. Looking to locality and investing in Australian made pieces also formed an integral part of the brief and completes a sustainable narrative, reducing the embedded energy where possible. By reimagining the kitchen into an open and welcoming social hub of the home, other surrounding living and dining zones all pivot and feed into one another, while the newly conceived bathroom and restrooms offer a moment of reprieve from the openness. These surprising pockets instead offer a nuanced gesture, enhanced through saturated colours and the use of expressive natural stone.

While the new works open up the interior, they also ensure an opening up of the façade where possible, to engage with the enviable aspect and imbed a sense of place through visual reminders.

Through a deliberate opening and lightening up, Vaucluse Residence is endowed the opportunity to embrace its location and outlook, seeing Pollak Design aid in the realising of the home’s otherwise previously potential.