Move Yoga Studio created by Hecker Guthrie is a stunning example of how local Australian interior design can transform a local small business.
Wanting to challenge the staid Melbourne Yoga scene, Move Yoga sought to create a space of calm and tranquillity – a retreat for the everyday urban-worker. They aspired to bring together like-minded people to practice, revitalise and nourish themselves through Vinyasa Power Yoga in infrared heated rooms.
Founded on the principles of healthy living, maintaining a balanced lifestyle and a passion for yoga, the clients commissioned Hecker Guthrie to transform the inner-city, open-plan industrial warehouse into a sanctuary for repose and meditation, away from the hustle of urban noise. Move Yoga’s desire to provide a comprehensive Yoga experience called for a design that moved beyond basic foundations for learning and practicing Yoga; they wanted all the appropriate amenities suited for the working Yogi, including polished and well-equipped bathroom facilities to wash, straighten and polish up before facing the city again.
The design concept celebrated the simplicity of a pared back palette, and the honesty of restrained workings of materials, with a nod to the North and a touch of the East. Hecker Guthrie’s composition referenced both the Japanese architectural sensibility in repeating solid elements – striking both an accessible and halcyon note – with graceful democratic timber detailing reminiscent of the Nordic design aesthetic.
An elevated central reception and locker room pavilion is dressed in paper-washed pine half-dowels intercepted by sinuous, thick ribs that wrap around the form and flow into both private studio spaces. A dramatic central doorway cuts through the ribs, framed like a Torii gate, with a floating pebble step-up from the lake, like lime-washed timber floor, to the male and female amenities.
Lighting plays an integral role, framing the atmosphere for each individual space. Transparent, over-scaled Paris Au Mois lanterns float softly above the reception desk and hover just above the floor, emitting a soft comforting glow. Loose woven linen, the colour of rice, gently sways in the space between reception and studio, to be drawn across when the class is in session. Fine black, steel-framed doors close off the space to noise once class begins and provide a modern reference to the existing architecture of the building.
Hecker Guthrie’s signature placement of ‘loose furniture’ takes form in both bespoke reception and storage elements, as well as sculptural and elegant furniture. Styling of reception spaces with a plump Ligne Rose Ploum, and fine, spindly Linden occasional tables in ash, anthracite and black balancing earthy Andrei Davidoff Japanese ceramics and gentle verdant greens creates a sculptural landscape of form, mimicking the strong, yet elegant yoga poses practised only metres away.
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