ARCHITECTURE

wAHEAD

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 tory by LUKE SLATTERY P hotography 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.

A restrained palette allows features such as the sweeping staircase to the right to take a starring role

A calm fluidity flows through the interior, from the entry with its bold, sculptural staircase to the kitchen, lounge room and master bedroom

This curved form is most pronounced in the beautiful steel staircase, the hero of the home. The staircase frame had to be inserted by crane, and once in place it was encased in polished plaster. The effect is dramatic, sculptural. The home’s interior revolves around the staircase and an oculus skylight window that is moulded sinuously – almost organically – into the second-floor ceiling. It’s on this level, with its water views and its softly diffused light, that the kitchen and living spaces are located.

The sculptural staircase, which descends over two levels, also allowed the architects to play with volume in a way that was denied by the old segmented – upstairs and downstairs – scheme. The immediate impression on entering the new home is one of a central dramatic space that connects seamlessly with the other spaces radiating from it.

“We’re very interested in the way light flows off walls and surfaces,” Jolson says. “The design allows for a diffusion of light across thresholds: from the master bedroom to the ensuite to the hall. These spaces are not necessarily segmented by a door.”

Jolson’s work on Arc Side channels his modernist influences –“I’m influenced by modernism but not overly by any one modernist” – but it also incorporates elements of Middle Eastern design. These influences “come from extensive travel in places like Tunisia, Morocco, Mali, Burkina Faso and India”, he says.

“In India we were asked to design a non-denominational temple recently and have spent a lot of time there. Middle Eastern traditions have also taught me a lot about veiling light, simple use of materials, volume and texture.”

Apart from the Middle Eastern design legacy, he is attracted to the work of Italian master Carlo Scarpa, particularly his “use of materials, form, and careful attention to detail”.

If there is a single word that captures the experience of Arc Side it is fluidity. Movement through the house is fluid. The water is an emotional presence. And the many polished surfaces of plaster and stone pick up ripples, glints and reflections. The sinuous form of the interior is heightened, not diminished, by the presence of hard-angled benches and storage spaces.

The architects designed the new structure, its interior and the garden. A horticulturalist helped put the design in place. This “holistic” approach allowed them to sustain the impression of fluidity from the curved, street-facing exterior, through the main interior spaces and into the rear garden. A sensitivity to the entire sense of place embodied in the site governed Jolson’s approach to Arc Side, and it’s an approach he takes into each commission.

“Each home is an individual and intuitive response to the site, the context and the client brief,” he says.