When the client bought this Edwardian terrace, it was a brothel that had recently gone out of business. Everything was still intact. The first instinct was to erase it entirely, but rather than strip all of that away, we drew on it. The existing palette of pinks, golds, greens and unexpected material pairings became a starting point for the new design.
The building is two existing structures – one converted into a two-bedroom house, the other into a guest house at the rear. Like most Edwardian terraces, it’s narrow and deep, and getting light into the centre is the main challenge. We cut a garden bed right back into the plan to bring daylight into the heart of the house, with a courtyard connecting the two dwellings.
Each space has its own atmosphere. The front room is darker and more cinematic. The kitchen picks up gold highlights from the existing finishes, with a raw brass benchtop that builds patina over time. Pink appears throughout – in new structural elements, in booth seating that clashes with green upholstery. The client is a film enthusiast, so a cinematic quality is expressed in several of the spaces – a gold curtain in the living room frames the view through to the guest house beyond.
The guest house goes further. Pink neon lighting wraps the interior. The palette is two tones of pink with carpet and fluorescent lighting – what we came to call the Iced Vovo palette. In the bathroom, green tiles line the walls, and the entire space is bathed in pink light from pink glass set into the skylight.
Rose Street,
Fitzroy
A residence and guest house in the backstreets of Fitzroy.
The building is two existing structures – one converted into a two-bedroom house, the other into a guest house at the rear. Like most Edwardian terraces, it’s narrow and deep, and getting light into the centre was the main challenge. We cut a garden bed right back into the plan to bring daylight into the heart of the house, with a courtyard connecting the two dwellings.
Pink appears throughout – in new structural elements, in booth seating that clashes with green upholstery. The client is a film enthusiast, so a cinematic quality is expressed in several of the spaces – a gold curtain in the living room frames the view through to the guest house beyond.
