Project: Elsternwick Residence
Architects: Kennedy Nolan
Builder: Bacchus Constructions
Landscape: Amanda Oliver Gardens
Location: Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia
Photos: Derek Swalwell
Text by Kennedy Nolan
Our work at the Elsternwick Residence involved the restoration and re-imagining of a substantial Edwardian house. The project was a great opportunity to deploy the principles of complete design embodied by the Arts and Crafts movement, an integrated amalgam of architecture, interior design and furnishing which were all developed by our Kennedy Nolan team. The existing building fabric was well-preserved and beautifully realised, providing a rich source of inspiration for our design.
Our Client’s brief called for a complete approach to a substantial suite of existing and newly constructed rooms but she spoke of emotions and atmospheres rather than specific spatial or visual qualities. The house was to be a refuge, and to provide visual delight in every instance.
Our approach emerged through devising a colour palette, an intention to imbue the interiors with colour (as appropriate to an Arts and Crafts house), but to make the colour as gentle as possible, and to modulate its intensity through the various rooms and zones. We sought to use texture as a means to amplify the subtleties of colour, using silk as ground for the wallpapers, lining walls in render rather than smooth plaster and extensively deploying fluted, limed timber.
