Finer details
Aura 1600 freestanding $2233, from Caroma, caroma.com.au. Sussex Scala floor-mounted curved outlet in Chrome, $2550, from Reece, reece.com.au. Michaël Verheyden Cont marble $522, from Matchesfashion, matchesfashion.com. Rosa nuvola POA, from Artedomus, artedomus.com. Flos Mini Glo-Ball by Jasper Morrison, $287, from Euroluce, euroluce.com.au.
Mineral and serene” is how leading designer and architect Joseph Dirand describes the atmosphere he wanted to create in his own bathroom in his Paris home. The result is a soft, elegant yet thoroughly modern ensuite. Stripped back to its core essence, the story of this sanctuary can be told quite literally through its walls. Swathed in a silken ivory, charcoal, caramel and gold-flecked paonazzo marble hewn from the marble mountains of Italy’s Carrara region, the stone surrounds induce an earthy yet quietly futuristic and almost other-worldly quality. “Definitely what is most unique in this bathroom is the paonazzo marble as the entire room was built from one single block of stone that took me a long time to source,” says Dirand, who used the same type of marble in the bathroom of his previous home. “I love the ivory colour of the base mixed with earth-brown veins.” Dirand’s well-documented obsession for precision, combined with his exacting taste for the perfect match of material within context means the challenges inherent in many design projects can take on almost Herculean proportions. The biggest challenge in this build for instance? “Bringing the one-and-a-half-tonne bathtub through the windows.” josephdirand.com