Portmanteau Apartment

by Brad Swartz Architects

From the Architect

Our design response was informed by the clients’ unique approach to retirement, downsizing from a house to not one, but three apartments, for a life of seasonal travel. With a brief to create a ‘permanent luxury hotel suite’, we took inspiration from the harbour and the glamorous heyday of ocean liner travel, tailoring the new interior to accomodate the clients’ Sydney life.

Blessed with an original Seidler floor plan, the fundamentals of light, aspect, outlook and air, were already in place. Our redesign hinged around a significant move: relocating the kitchen from its rear alcove to a central axis along the bathroom wall, opening up the living space to the view over Rushcutter’s Bay. Joinery interventions are minimally intrusive and dual purpose.

The kitchen’s cantilevered cupboards create a mini vestibule from which apartment, bathroom and bedroom are entered, and where a small fold-away desk turns the space into a ‘study’ facing the view. American oak flooring, Corian bench-top, laminate and mirrored joinery combine warmth and light with durability, while a concrete plaster-finished ceiling has elegantly smoothed away the 60s vermiculite.

The project re-enstates our core principals of re-using existing housing stock in imaginative, lasting ways.