静谧之境 | Anny Benjamin | 2026 | 澳大利亚
This Melbourne home keeps its 1970s spirit intact, with restored original details, vintage lighting and a baby-blue bathroom that feels joyfully of another era.
“My work has always been underpinned by the philosophy that the most meaningful interiors are those shaped by memory, experience and the rituals of everyday life,” says interior designer Anny Benjamin, founder of Studio ab. “I don’t believe design begins with a colour palette or a style, but with understanding how people want to live, what they value, and the atmosphere they want to create around themselves.” The Melbourne-based creative set up her studio in 2024, and excels at both softening new-build shells, such as the soulful home she created for a young couple building their first home together, and at renovating older properties. “I believe that homes should evolve rather than be erased – for me, there is something powerful in allowing different eras to coexist, creating interiors that feel authentic and enduring.”
A restrained yet warm approach to materiality also characterises Benjamin’s style – she argues that good design is as much about how a space feels as how it looks. “I’m interested in how materials create atmosphere, evoke memory, and shape our experience of a space,” she explains.
Both materials and memory were crucial in her renovation of this 1973 Melbourne home in the suburbs, which she designed for herself and her husband Christos Antoniadis. The 1970s is often thought of as a brash era, yet this project is anything but that. Earthy and richly textured, the three-bedroom space fuses a retro spirit with contemporary ideals.
The couple were drawn to the home for its nostalgic character, its relaxed residential surroundings, and its miraculous state of preservation – the property was largely unaltered when they bought it, retaining a number of original features. “Its solid brick walls had a sense of permanence, and there were traces of its Mediterranean heritage, reflecting a design language found in many Melbourne homes of this era,” explains Benjamin. “It also shared many similarities with our grandparents’ homes. Mine migrated from Egypt, while my husband’s came from Greece and Italy during the 1950s and 60s.”
Benjamin could see that with a few changes, the interior could be updated for today’s hybrid way of living. Still, she wanted to honour the house’s past. Her redesign, she says, “was driven by a desire to lean into the home’s 1970s character, rather than make it feel like a renovation completed in 2025. I wanted the house to feel layered and personal – not fixed to one era, but still deeply connected to its origins.”The first step was to rework the disjointed spaces. A laundry room was transformed into a second bathroom; the kitchen and dining area were opened up, and a new laundry and pantry were installed next to the kitchen, concealed behind a feature wall of burl-walnut veneer by Elton Group. Benjamin also created a home office with a custom lacquered sideboard to house her library and material samples. All of this was done without increasing the home’s footprint. As the project progressed, the designer was careful to retain and restore original features, such as scalloped cornicing, corner windows, and bullion-glass panels in the entrance (now echoed by a similar vintage piece in the bathroom, which was toughened and set into a custom frame as a shower screen). “The oak flooring, including boards discovered beneath the bedroom carpets, was sanded and polished; we also refinished internal doors and restored the fireplace with brown tiles by Artedomus,” adds Benjamin.
The new décor reinterprets 1970s style with a sun-washed colour palette. “It distils what we believe at Studio ab – individuality over convention, texture over flawlessness, and feeling over perfection,” says Benjamin. Her grandfather’s home was a key inspiration, especially in the kitchen, with its blush-toned custom joinery and Marron Emperador marble surfaces. Here, she deliberately mixed metals for added tactility: chrome taps contrast with walnut-and-nickel hardware by Bankston and sparkling 1950s Dandelion chandeliers by Emil Stejnar, part of a collection of vintage lighting that “reinforces the sense that the home has been composed over time”.
- 转载自：AD(admiddleeast)
- 图片@AD(admiddleeast)
- 国家：美国
- 编辑：序赞网
- 翻译：序赞网
- 阅读原文
|
|
