Sydney Contemporary Perch

by Dylan Farrell Design

Set atop a dramatic perch that overlooks a secret nook inside of Sydney’s distinct waterfront, this seven-bedroom home features interiors that have been inventively stripped back, reconfigured and punctuated by saturated hits of colour, audacious textural relationships and an assemblage of international and locally- sourced or made bespoke, new and vintage furnishings.

Its residents, an indefatigable and design-minded couple and their three young children were enamoured by the building’s voluminous spaces and dramatic harbour and native garden views, but they – and we! – felt the vast and open spaces were crying out for a sense of intimacy and connectivity. In order to tame this sense of cavernousness and begin to paint the home with warmth and architectural rhythm, we tackled the design by first opening a series of four striking, deeply contrasting, timber-frame passageways to the dining / kitchen, to the flanking family room and living rooms, and between the kitchen and back hallway. To enhance the sweeping height of the three openings off the entry, we landed a floating, high-gloss ceiling plane at the home’s entry to achieve a more intimate, human-scaled entrance. Beyond the entry, the home’s original fireplace location was retained, but artfully encapsulated with a sculptural, hand-burnished brass surround and near-black hand-applied combed lacquer chimney breast that gives the illusion of the firebox being on centre with the newly created central passageway. This idea of a “vista” captured beyond each of these passages grounds the main living spaces, and the new spiralling staircase drives a sculptural spoke between it all by sharing the same dark-vs.-light materiality and drama.

We then stripped away all the existing vertical architecture at the centre of the house and inserted a series of 4 aluminium-framed sliding glass doors to create a central atrium between the wings of the home. When approaching the home in daylight, the atrium becomes a lens where one looks through the centre of the home, down the sweeping landscape toward the perched view of the water. In the evening, the atrium glows reminiscent of a lighthouse; a beacon for arrival.

The clients had a strong desire for a cosmopolitan, ultra-modern interior. We wanted this as well, but we also wanted the interior spaces to share a connectivity to the whimsy and unexpectedness of the meandering gardens and landscape beyond the building’s walls. To accomplish this, we attempted to create splashes of nature in a re-invented, architectural form. The powder room’s vanity recalls a flower opening its petals. The satin brass and glass, custom-configured light fixture descending through the solid- walled timber stair void recalls a dangling vine dropping through garden walls. The richly toned, combed lacquer fireplace wall recalls the trowelling marks of a rake through soil, or even a saw blade through quarried rock. The marble and stone selections are as actively patterned and gestural as the beautiful trees surrounding the property. The timbers used at every joinery piece and every architectural junction are sensitively wire-brushed and finished to feel alive and tactile.

In order to temper these earth-inspired textures, we intentionally splashed fields of saturated colour and metallic, reflective elements throughout. Bold, colourful artworks adorn the entry. A field of aqua and a punch of watermelon energise the Living Room. A scintillating, metallic “raindrops” fixture by Curtis Jere and deep turquoise-toned bedsides punctuate the Master Bedroom. A totem-like series of thickly-painted artworks in a kaleidoscope of colours slices through the otherwise muted palette of the kitchen joinery.

The result is a fresh, shimmering look at a sophisticated interior inspired by both natural and metropolitan sensibilities. We believe it is an apt representation of the unique and original aesthetics that are currently emerging from Australia – one of the few places in the world where the contradiction of urban and natural influence collides. And the once rambling architecture of this home now feels alive, filled with curiosity, comfort, and cause.