An inventive attitude to the fundamental elements of colour and materiality enlivens the emotional layers of Somerville House.
Briefed to design for the clients’ evolving needs, Fiona Lynch Office creative director, Fiona Lynch, meandered through the original home in Yarraville observing abundant colours and textures. “I knew this project was going to bring joy…That tension, between care and exuberance, heritage and experimentation, provided enormous creative potential,” she says. The clients’ trusting openness enabled innovative freedom to unfold.
The renovated floorplan encompasses living and dining spaces, kitchen, powder room and primary bedroom suite, with a separate guest level primed to embrace visiting family. Lynch worked alongside architect Dominic Pandolfini to ensure that while the heritage, Victorian-era façade was preserved, inside could take on a playful modernity. Conceptually, the clients’ art collection and the original home’s palette, including pastel pinks, greens and burnt reds, provided the interiors launchpad.
The design sees materials spread their wings beyond usual, functional confines. In doing so they become heroes of the home’s unique personality. Drawing on inventive swathes of stone applied in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s Barcelona Pavilion, Lynch highlights that here, “Stone was approached as architecture rather than decoration, allowed to wrap, step and extend beyond conventional boundaries to actively shape the space.”
