Positioned in the heart of an inner-city suburb, the Black Moon Rising Apartment takes inspiration from Melbourne’s laneway culture and vibrant hospitality scene. For the clients, the new home represents a shift to city living and they were excited to bring those elements into their design and especially wanted to integrate the feeling of being at a glamourous luxury hotel or fine dining restaurant.
A dark, moody palate offering a surprising level of warmth and spaciousness allows the owners to live and entertain in a compact environment that is comfortable, refined and crafted for a sense of pleasure. A palette of modest materials is used in unusual ways, layering varied textures and colours to build a richness through the home. Hovering above the stair like a moon, an oxide treatment creates a darken circle within the hand worked plaster to give the project a sense of identity and memorable experiential qualities like you might see in a posh dining venue.
The apartment fit out sits within a newly constructed four story shell on a tight inner-city site, with very restricted internal width and access to light. Working with the available natural light and adding a program of sleek artificial lighting contributes to both the feeling of spaciousness and the hospitality atmosphere by creating dramatic effects highlighting sheen and texture.
Given space constraints, and storage requirements, walls are replaced with joinery units to define areas. The joinery is used to provide 3 dimensional objects of beauty that define the program by replacing walls and allowing light and texture to slide past each other creating an illusion of depth and size. In particular, a three storey joinery unit lines the open staircase, establishing circulation spaces, allowing flexibility in the programming of adjacent spaces and providing a dramatic link, tying four levels together. At every level it connects and defines an open space, fulfilling a variety of functions.
Black Moon Rising explores a design approach infusing a hospitality-like aesthetic with a functional residential space, resulting in a rich duality.
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