Project Overview
Located in Sydney’s leafy North Shore, this home embraces the tranquil forest outlook through a composition of soft curves, natural textures, and warm timber joinery. The interior is grounded in calm, designed to reflect the peace of its surroundings and create an emotional sense of connection.
The thoughtful use of oak, natural stone, and ambient lighting brings a grounded elegance to the everyday. Spaces are not just physically connected—they flow intuitively through form, material and tone. The home is built on the philosophy that good design should not shout but support, enhancing daily life with understated depth. Every element, from detailing to spatial rhythm, is aligned to provide ease and harmony. This is a family home where nature, design, and function exist in balance and where architectural expression is secondary to lived comfort.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
David Son
Hazel Kim
Jiny Lee
Inje Hwang
Kyoungwon seo
Jiyoung Yoo
Project Brief
This project was born from the client’s desire to live closer to nature. Surrounded by dense bushland, the site itself became the foundation of the design intent—to allow the tranquillity of the setting to seep indoors. We aimed to create spaces that felt tactile and calm, using warm timber finishes, curved joinery, and soft lighting to enrich the sensory experience. The layout was shaped by the family’s lifestyle, focusing on movement and connection.
Circulation was mapped to feel natural, helping each space transition seamlessly into the next without losing functional clarity. The kitchen, living, and dining areas were positioned to support shared routines, while private zones remain quietly separated. Through a restrained palette and thoughtful zoning, the house reads as a single, flowing narrative—honest and cohesive.
Project Innovation/Need
This project distinguishes itself through its finely tuned response to the client’s lifestyle. Rather than pursuing showy gestures, the design prioritised practicality and flow. A key innovation was the separation of the kitchen into a main and butler’s zone, allowing food preparation to occur discreetly while the front kitchen remains clean and welcoming.
Beyond aesthetics, this allowed for more intuitive movement during busy daily routines. The butler’s kitchen connects directly to the laundry, streamlining domestic work into a continuous, time-saving sequence. Customised storage was planned across high-use zones—kitchen, robe, bathroom, laundry—each designed around real routines, not assumptions. This is a house defined not by trends but by subtle spatial intelligence. The true innovation lies in its quiet support of daily life, enabling beauty through thoughtful functionality.
Design Challenge
The design challenge lay in preserving openness while establishing distinct zones. Too often, open-plan homes lack definition; here, spatial clarity was achieved without losing warmth. The social core—kitchen, living, and dining—was designed as a cohesive whole, unified through material and layout, while maintaining visual flow.
Privacy was ensured in bedrooms and service areas through subtle zoning techniques—joinery, lighting, and floor transitions. Large windows frame the bushland, extending the space beyond its physical boundary. The kitchen sits at the heart of the home, oriented to overlook the view, so one can cook while feeling part of the natural surroundings. This required precise planning—balancing openness with function, flow with intimacy. Ultimately, the challenge was not just spatial but emotional: to create a home that feels expansive yet grounded, connected yet calm.
Sustainability
Sustainability was approached with long-term use in mind, favouring durability, adaptability, and efficiency over aesthetic trends. Materials were chosen for their longevity—timber and stone that age gracefully and require minimal upkeep. The layout was designed to adapt over time, reducing the need for future renovations.
Highly functional storage was built into daily-use areas, supporting lifestyle efficiency while reducing clutter and waste. The home’s orientation and open plan maximise natural daylight, reducing dependence on artificial lighting during the day and promoting passive energy savings. Sustainability here is not decorative—it is embedded in the home’s usability and resilience. By designing for real life, not just for show, the project encourages slower, smarter living that respects both the environment and the people within.
Interior Design - Residential
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes and aesthetic presentation. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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