墨尔本住宅 | Swee Design | 2026 | 澳大利亚
When interior designer Swee Lim, founder of studio Swee Design, was asked to renovate this Federation-era Melbourne home in the city’s Malvern suburb, it felt like a dream project. Dating from 1912, the property was designed by architect Augustus Fritsch, known for the Catholic churches he created around Melbourne. The home is awash with Art Nouveau and Neo-Gothic references, including elaborate carved woodwork and stained-glass windows.
“The architecture was compelling – high ceilings, beautiful heritage details, and a sense of volume that allowed room for statement furniture and large-scale artworks,” says Lim. “I was also drawn to the clients, a family of five: they were adventurous, and wanted a home with personality, not a safe interior. They were open to collaboration, to commissioning works from artists and makers, and to creating something that didn’t feel like anyone else’s home. The challenge of respecting Federation bones while inserting a contemporary energy made this the kind of project designers dream of.”
Lim’s challenge was to balance the formality of the rooms with the expressive, contemporary look the owners wanted. In this, she was aided by a previous renovation, which had opened up the rear of the house with a modern, light-filled extension. “The interplay between old and new became the foundation for the new interior,” she says.
As there are several people living in the home (the family’s three children are young adults, so it also welcomes their friends and partners), the design needed to be practical, even though the clients loved the idea of being surrounded by art. Lim approached the project as a “living gallery” where everything, even the most sculptural designs, is “meant to be used, sat on and lived with”. Her starting point was colour. “The palette moves from calm to saturated as you travel through the home,” she explains. “In the older rooms, we used an elegant, warm grey that’s respectful of heritage proportions, quietly luxurious, and a soft base for their more formal use. In the contemporary wing, colour becomes more expressive: layered blues drawn from the indigo kitchen joinery, deepened by velvet furnishings and punctuated with accents of pink, burgundy and bronze.”
Original cornices and woodwork – including a staircase and a striking carved dining-room fireplace – were painted white and grey to bring them up to date. The fresh mood is signalled from the moment you enter the house. “The double-height foyer immediately sets the tone for the home’s sculptural and chromatic ambitions,” says Lim, who decorated this space with a colourful Slinkie rug by CC-Tapis, a faceted console by Melbourne studio denHolm, and handwoven fibre wall sculptures by Emma Davies in bright pastels. “Colour here is not trend-driven – it’s purposeful, linked to artworks, materiality, and mood,” adds the designer. “Each room has its own colour personality. The sophisticated grey colour scheme with limited accents evokes a sense of refinement.”
While grey can be sombre, it isn’t here, thanks to the playful furniture, artworks and craft pieces dotted throughout the rooms. These include Ligne Roset’s curvy Ploum sofa in the formal living room, which sits alongside a pair of handmade blush-pink ceramic totems by artist Clementine Maconachie that were commissioned especially for the space (totems are a recurring theme in the project: a trio of pleated-wool pieces by Australian-Portuguese artist Marta Figueiredo adds colour to a staircase). “The house is filled with unique pieces, many created in collaboration with local makers and artists,” says Lim.
In the open-plan living-dining room and kitchen that dominates the extension, a cobalt-blue sculpture of a horse head by artist Stephen Glassborow makes a talking point beside the dining table, while a rope-like textile wallhanging adds tactile charm above the fireplace; it was commissioned from Mexican studio Caralarga. “The material palette is richly textured, with accents of pink marble, cast bronze and artisan fabrics contributing to a sense of depth and variation,” says Lim. “We used a mix of hard, soft and luminous surfaces that catch the light at different times of day, adding velvet, linen, leather and quilted fabrics for softness and touchability.”
These softer touches give the family the lived-in comfort they craved: Edra’s Standard sofa, with its snaking shape and endless cushions, is a regular gathering point in the informal living area, anchored with a blue New Japan rug by CC-Tapis; the covered courtyard garden features Cassina’s generously proportioned Trampoline seating, alongside a 100kg bronze sculpture by artist Sonia Payes (so heavy that it had to be craned into position). Everything here provokes curiosity and delight, but the home never feels staged – it’s just the marriage of heritage and adventurousness its owners imagined. @sweedesign
Photo: Shannon McGrath
- 转载自：AD(admiddleeast)
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