For the first time an apartment has been named Australian House of the Year at the 2016 Houses Awards.
Judge Karen Alcock, of MA Architects, says the Darling Point apartment by Sydney firm Chenchow Little was a “clear winner.”
“When you look at so many projects, there are a lot of common ideas among them – a lot of architects feeding off one another – and then you see projects like this that are completely unique,” Alcock says.
She says apartments often get a bad wrap from a design perspective because of their broad market appeal, but this project was designed according to a very specific brief.
The owners wanted the to make the most of the views from the eighth floor, while still retaining the sense of enclosed warmth that you might typically find in a traditional house design.
“They didn’t want it to be a really open apartment, they wanted the kitchen to be separate. The challenge for the architect was how to keep it separate, but still open,” she says.
“In that sense, their brief was more house-like.”
The judging panel, made up of a number of leading architects and designers, noted in the citation that the winning design reflects a shift in the way many Australians are now living: “This project demonstrates that an apartment can be designed with the same warmth and sophistication as a detached house.”
Another win for Sydney architects
It is not the first award Chenchow Little have won for the apartment – they also took home the top prize at 2016 Australian Interior Design Awards in June of this year.
The architects won praise from the judging panels at both the Australian Interior Design Awards and the Houses Awards for their creative response to the clients’ brief.
The empty nester couple has a very large art collection which they were accustomed to displaying in a big house.
Due to the lack of wall space available, Chenchow Little installed a series of floating American oak and painted white steel cabinets with moveable panels to display the paintings.
Alcock says the design perfectly compliments the owners’ art collection, which includes original works by Australian artists John Coburn and Jeffrey Smart.
“Where you’ve got the actual art pieces it’s quite subdued, but when you go into the bathrooms it’s a chance to have a bit of fun without detracting from the art,” she says.
Alcock says the bathrooms are each “a beautiful design exercise in themselves” and add an element of surprise with the use of different colours and a wall of mirrors.
“It’s a little bit reminiscent of 1950s houses where you’ve got this high level of design in the house – nothing was average – and into that they would bring art. There is an understanding and an appreciation of art in the design.
“Both the art and the architecture have their own artistic merits,” she says.
The awards, now in their sixth year, celebrate the best in residential design.
