Conservation society
The intersection of the kitchen and meals area with the outside patio.
View through to the kitchen from the outside area.
The vivid green of the full-height kitchen cabinetry contrasts with the dark grey of the concrete floor and the black benchtop.
This bathroom features small round tiles, a cushion-cut vanity basin and a frameless glass shower recess.
Irregular windows interact with the raked roof, bringing natural light into the aquamarine second bathroom.
A sensitive renovation of a 1960s home in Sydney’s Middle Cove by Nobbs Radford Architects combines the old with the new to achieve startling results through the use of colour and a modern touch.
In a society so hasty to gentrify the architectural path preceding it, the patience to sandpaper the rougher edges and restore past pearls of design wisdom is a rarity. This 1960s iconic Pettit and Sevitt design in Sydney’s Middle Cove had been immaculately preserved. The challenge for architect Alison Nobbs was to nurture its native aesthetic and architectural pedigree, while ushering it into a practical modernity.
The gaudier 1960s aesthetic elements have been groomed away, allowing the new design to sync with the natural, verdant setting. A grounding but instantly affable collection of leafy and earthy hues has drifted down through the branches of the surrounding trees – deep wells of black and smouldering charcoal, mossy green and teal and blonde oaks.
The velvety, caterpillar green of the full-height kitchen cabinetry has a subtle intricacy, with tonal and finish differentiations revealed on each panel as the light engages it – a design misdirection from the functional housing of integrated appliances. The licorice blacks and ashy greys in the polished concrete floors are a restful nod to the hard, stony elements of the surrounding landscape. Generous jet black benchtops and jade splashbacks bask in the warming appeal of oak joinery.
An entire wall slips away to fuse the kitchen with the garden, injecting vitality into previously congested living areas. The wraparound paved terrace is sheltered by a pergola of operable louvres, which extends the terrace’s use across seasons and performs shadow play across the kitchen.
The two refurbished bathrooms playfully mirror each other like sisters, not twins, with counter colour schemes. The bathrooms fall in line with the colour stipulations, their lines swallowed whole by the black and aquamarine penny round tiles that peer out from the walls. These are accentuated by the comparable continuity of the larger-format floor tiles and the glow of the punctuating oak cabinetry. The rigidity of frameless glass shower recesses is softened by cushion-cut vanity basins, a bath and toilets. The layout plays into the hands of the existing raked roof form, jutting sharp elbows and knees skyward to frame irregular highlight windows and large glazing, which beckons eucalypts and rocky outcrops indoors.
Alison attributes the result to an affinity for the architecture, which she slipped into quite comfortably, and the owner’s appreciation for the treasures of a time gone by. The elusive transition between yesterday and today elegantly sidesteps the more stereotypical traits of 1960s architecture and reinterprets a discourse that the site and the modern day family can also fold themselves easily within.
