Nourish your senses
Kitchen designs that are simmering with personality.
There is a lot of personality simmering in the kitchens in this issue, as architects and designers become more daring with colours and materials not typically seen in this space. While we saw traces of this emerge in our last issue – with a shift away from white, natural and neutral-coloured kitchens – the trend for richer, more varied palettes is even more prominent this year.
Green and pale pink have proved popular in a handful of projects, while Studio Prineas has embraced the dark side at Longwood apartment (pictured and page 84), combining burgundy and black with a delicious-looking stone benchtop evocative of marbling in meat. These unexpected colours are complemented with equally surprising materials such as burnished brass, glazed enamel, fabric and metal. These are used to create layered, textural spaces, whether dark and robust, as in Splinter Society’s Three Stories North (page 36), or light and airy, as with Carter Williamson’s Pompei (page 44).
This use of materials and colours sees island benches come to the fore as the centrepiece of the kitchen. Curves soften their form and aid circulation in and around the kitchen, as well as enabling friends and family to gather around them more comfortably. Beyond the island bench, joinery is being designed to appear more like furniture – a trend that has developed more and more over recent years – helping to visually and functionally integrate the kitchen with dining and living areas.
But strip away the colour, material and joinery design, and the desire for a simple, minimalist layout remains. Beneath it all, the kitchens in this issue are no-fuss, easy-to-use spaces that have been embellished with style and personality.
01 Colourful surprise
This issue showcases an embrace of colour not often seen in the kitchen, as well as unusual combinations of hues. This fresh take is light and playful, while sometimes tinged with a sense of nostalgia. The kitchens by Carter Williamson and Studio Weave are both pretty in pink, with Studio Weave drawing inspiration from Francis Apartment’s Art Deco surroundings (page 92). Kennedy Nolan has paired olive green with timber at Sandy Point House (page 100), while enamel green cabinetry is a sharp contrast to white in Richards Stanisich’s Beach House (pictured and page 28).
02 Celebrating curves
Curves are not only present in kitchen islands, but also in peninsula benches, joinery and structural columns, where they serve to visually soften space and suggest movement through the house. At Carter Williamson’s Pompei (pictured), the joinery design is inspired by a marble dining table belonging to the clients, with the joinery following the curve of the round tabletop, mimicking its form. CJH Studio, meanwhile, has drawn inspiration from the base build of Penthouse M (page 114), rounding off a large structural column and adding a curved infill island to provide additional bench and storage space.
03 Kitchen island centrepiece
Kitchen islands are front and centre in many of the houses in this issue. Unexpected materials such as raw brass, concrete and upholstery are visually striking, as is the dramatic, graphic granite that clads the island bench in Archier’s Hampden Road (pictured and page 122), standing out against a wall of dark, robust steel joinery and benchtops. Curves abound in many of the kitchen islands, from the scalloped base in Carter Williamson’s Pompei to the rounded corners and carved-out front in Peppertree Villa by Luigi Rosselli Architects and Alwill Interiors (page 68), where curves “enhance its style and practicality.”
The kitchens in this issue are no- fuss, easy- to- use spaces that have been embellished with style and personality.
04 Part of the furniture
As kitchens increasingly serve as the social hub of the home and an integrated part of living and dining areas, the joinery is being designed to become part of the furniture. This is evident nowhere more so than in Studio Weave’s Francis Apartment (pictured), where the kitchen bench extends along the wall and transitions into a built-in seat with storage underneath, literally becoming furniture. In Light House (page 130), Layan created a wall of cabinetry that conceals kitchen amenities, including a four-metre benchtop and bar used for large gatherings.
06 Back to basics
Beneath all the embellishment, the kitchens in this issue have a simple layout and streamlined design, ensuring functionality is not compromised for aesthetic, personality or style. As restaurateurs, the homeowners of Nielsen Jenkins’ Wooloowin House (pictured and page 60) know the importance of a functional kitchen and were very specific about the layout, materials and measurements, down to the drawer depths. Paring the kitchen back to its essentials, Kennedy Nolan has discreetly integrated the benchtop and joinery into one wall at Sandy Point House, while Studio Prineas has worked with the existing space at Longwood and increased the depth of the bench to provide greater surface space.
05 Unexpected materials
Steel, fabric, raw brass, glazed lava stone and concrete are some of the more unusual materials in these kitchens, used in conjunction with traditional timber, laminate, marble and tiles. The results are textured, tactile and layered spaces that are rich and varied, and will patina with use and time. Splinter Society’s dark and monochromatic palette in Three Stories North (pictured and page 36) includes perforated steel, leather-finish black granite, penny-round tiles and rivets, while Studio Weave has created a light and tactile kitchen at Francis Apartment (page 92), combining pink speckled terrazzo, timber dowels and pale pink upholstery for the island bench.