w AHEAD OF THE CURVE
The exciting renewal of a much-loved Melbourne home that had outgrown its use as a family domain has created timeless, dynamic spaces
S to r y by LU KE SL AT T E RY
Photography by LUCAS ALLEN
When Jolson Architecture Interiors began building what would become the threefloor inner Melbourne dwelling Arc Side, director Stephen Jolson looked at the site, gave his head a figurative scratch, and wondered how to correctly categorise the work. The existing house, built a little more than 20 years ago to the design of a prominent Melbourne architect, had been so thoroughly dismantled by Jolson and his team that little was left beyond a curved section of the facade and one piece of the first- floor concrete slab. These were the only vestiges of the original house. “Was it an alteration or addition, or something closer to a new build?” the director asked himself. The clients moved into the building – whose envelope has also been retained by Jolson – in 2001. “It was quite a revolutionary three-level home at the time,” he says. “The idea was that level one and two were reserved for the couple and the ground floor for their children, much like separate apartments. But as time went on it ceased to be a family home. The clients love the location, its connection to Melbourne city and water views. In short, they love the environment. But they had outgrown the space, the way the house was designed. Their main problem was that the central stairwell blocked the possibility for open plan living.” While they had good memories of their family home, they also recalled the struggle they’d endured to drive the modernist facade through the local council. “They were reluctant to enter the process again and trigger the same problems,” says Jolson, whose practice is also Melbourne based. The design solution – to retain the curved facade and radically reconfigure the interior – saved everyone a lot of pain. And yet the curved facade and the discipline it imposed became, in the design process, an “impetus”, a motif around which the language of the new structure could evolve. “When you are designing renovations you often end up with more interesting results because you’re challenged by a dialogue, that perhaps might not exist if there are no parameters or constraints,” Jolson says. While the curved facade gave a certain sculptural street presence to the early noughties building, inside it was animated by a very different design language. Where the interior of the turn-of-the-century building was colourful with a pronounced geometry, the design by Jolson and his team, led by Daniella Mikulic, was calm and seductive. “We were interested in the flow of surfaces, reflections and filtered light,” Jolson says. They ended up taking the form of the curved facade and integrating it into the interior so that “the curve inspired the whole experience, inside and out; it infiltrated the design process”. Curves, moulded into walls and ceilings sweep through the entire space. 54
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THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
| APRIL 10-11, 2021
