Melbourne, VIC
Milk Bar House
Project Completed: 2021
- FEATURED PRODUCTSThe Sunbaker
ARCHITECT
Kennedy NolanBUILDER
CBD ContractingPHOTOGRAPHER
Derek SwalwellSECTOR
Residential
Harnessing a feeling of nostalgia within a home is often listed as high on a project priority list, but oftentimes this powerful sense gets lost in the fray of building restrictions, budgetary constraints, and a lack of deft handling by its creators. Locating the heartstrings of a project and keeping them pulsing is a speciality at Kennedy Nolan, who saw past the “unremarkable” weatherboard to its attached former corner milk bar and tapped into its inherent “much-loved building typology” as a starting point for the project.
Re-affirmed with other intentions for the project - utilising an unusually high external wall to create a large, private productive garden and a Medina-inspired green oasis - both nature and nostalgia became the muse for the interiors that followed.
“The brief for the bathroom was to maximise natural light within a particularly small footprint and retain any existing heritage elements such as the window and fireplace,” says Adrianna Hanna, Director of Architecture at Kennedy Nolan. The narrow bathroom had an extremely generous ceiling height into which a large skylight was introduced to accentuate the roof volume and relationship to sky.
“We chose a wall tile that is soft in colour, with a varied surface, and is reflective so the tall undulating vertical surface creates an immersive, almost ‘marine-like’ space for the daily ritual of bathing,” says Hanna. “The client came to us with an appreciation and appetite for colour. They were interested in soft Gustavian tones, so we decided that soft eucalypt greens would marry in well with the view into a heavily planted internal courtyard garden. We also ensured that the majority of materials utilised within the project had inherent colour within them like the bagged render, blackbutt, ceramic tiles, terrazzo, natural brass and ceramic wall lights.”
“Fibonacci’s The Sunbaker terrazzo tiles create a relaxed and unpretentious feel to the spaces - which ties in well with other materials throughout the house that are robust enough for the knocks of day to day living for the young family,” says Hanna.
“The warm organic shapes that float in a neutral base make The Sunbaker an inspired choice for the bathroom,” says Michael Karakolis, Founder of Fibonacci. “In fact, our whole Ankle Deep range was designed to give architects, designers and specifiers the colours of our unique landscape – and we love seeing where they take them and how they interpret them, as Kennedy Nolan have done is this inspired residential project.”
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