One-off homes require broader approach

AMONG the mansions and bungalows of Kew sits a modern home full of Dr. Seuss whimsy - twin cones (one pointing up, the other down), a spyglass porthole, windows and a door set at a lean.

And that's only the facade. Inside, there are more sloping walls and sweeping curves, crooked windows and doors, as well as a playful white spiral staircase, like a suspended swirl of milk, with its tilting balustrade peeling upward through a central light-filled void.

Across town, off Northcote's bustling High Street, there's another striking contemporary abode, Polygreen, wrapped in a translucent wrinkled skin of fibreglass imprinted with graffiti-like streaks of green.

Both properties are of a kind that can't help but catch the eye: truly original, invariably architect-designed one-offs.

They're unique homes that literally stop you in your tracks - as much private residences as public architecture.

They are also examples of structures that arise from the particular visions of owners and architects - sometimes independently, sometimes in concert. Advertisement When David O'Donnell found a block, also in Kew, on which to build his dream home, he wanted something that would stand out in relief against the 1950s blandscape of clinker brick and terracotta: ''High-end and stylish … but not a McMansion.''

In the hands of designer Michael O'Sullivan, the end product was ''a traffic-stopper'' - a floating box of horizontal silver-ash battens at right angles to an elongated box with vertical timber strips underneath.

What he had in mind was a '60s-styled stereo speaker cabinet.

For architect and public artist Michael Bellemo, Polygreen was as much an art project as architectural.

The abstract pattern tattooed on the building, for instance, was adopted from a sculpture, adding greenery to the red-brick streetscape.

''We work forwards and backwards from building-making to sculpture-making,'' Bellemo told Domain when he looked to sell Polygreen a couple of years ago.

For architect Andrew Bartholomeusz, it's the combination of the relationship between client and architect that often produces these unique outcomes.

In Toorak, he created a dazzling facade studded with hand-slumped faceted glass diamonds and triangular windows on silvery glass sheets, which reflected the owners' interests in bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

Bartholomeusz describes it as ''a necklace'' adorning ''the expanse of one's body''.

While these funky-cool looks are often a projection of owner and architect, they're just as frequently a design response to the site.

One of Bartholomeusz's projects is an X-shaped residence, cantilevering over a berm, to take advantage of a sweeping vista.

Another on Beach Road has two townhouses stacked on top of each other at the front to accommodate the narrowness of the block, before ending up side by side.

- domain.com.au.