Through a sensibility to detailing, lush materiality and a richly layered palette, Toorak Home celebrates the home’s original Art Deco roots. Hecker Guthrie have brought together geometries and a boldness to form, with surprising curves and bold details that enhance the existing home. Much like Hecker Guthrie’s previous projects; including Donaldson’s Farmhouse, there is a deliberateness to avoid replication, and instead, incorporate new internal elements that sit comfortably alongside the existing spaces.

Originally designed in the 1930s by renowned architect Marcus Martin, the home needed to be bought into the current day. The existing layout was restructured to capture the flow and functional requirements of its clients, which then provided the framework for sweeping nods to the era, geometrically and formally. The resulting curved end wall details, and custom curve detail in square-set internal steel frame internal doors show a modern interpretation of the Deco stylistic movement.

Planned to optimise the intake of natural light, and to emphasise an encouragement of movement through each of the large proportioned rooms, the use of glass and varying transparencies was used throughout. Allowing not only for a sense of connection, but allowing for glimpses through to adjacent rooms, there is a balance between formal and informal approaches.

Reflecting the grandeur of the home, the materiality and application of the detailing throughout responds to its very nature. With warm and rich French oak herringbone flooring through the living and corridor spaces, walls are coated with a tactile polished plaster finish. The expansive use of natural stone by G-Lux, in such large and uninterrupted slabs, expressed in monolithic ways in both the kitchen and bathroom reflect the home’s confidence.

A layered home in palette, geometry and form, Toorak Home imbues a timeless warmth. A sense of luxury is expressed in the application and restraint of the interior spaces, and the ample selection of Apparatus from the Cloud 37 Chandelier to the Horsehair Sconce and Tassel 1 Sconce, shows a dedication to the arts and craftsmanship. Through a series of grand gestures, Hecker Guthrie has added a sense of personality, while creating a future for this ornate 1930’s home.