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OR VIEW ALL PROJECTSOR GO BACK TO SEARCH RESULTSOR VIEW ALLPROJECTS BY ARCHITECT GARTH BARNETTAPARTMENT PROJECTS2001 PROJECTSPROJECTS IN SYDNEYPROJECTS PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALICE PAGLIANO |
Accustomed to reworking old apartments and houses, Garth Barnett turned his hand to a brand-new building; a building with clean lines and spaces.
For a designer who can't stand irregular shaped rooms -"I like things to be rectangular or square," he has said -it has been quite a relief to deal with an apartment that contains only right angles.
And to get involved during the construction phase; to do, rather than undo.
The building in question is The Republic by Burley Katon Halliday, a low-rise apartment commercial complex in East Sydney, not an environment in which you'd necessarily expect to find Barnett and his style of decorating.
But, he says of the two-storey apartment, "I love it, the lightness of it." That lightness comes about largely through the generous terraces and floor-length windows on three sides of the downstairs section, terraces and floor-length windows on two sidesof upstairs.
Barnett hasn't had to do an enormous amount to make the apartment just the way he wants it.
"I've reinterpreted it in my way," he says. "Modern but with an eclectic twist."
First thing was to lay limestone flooring downstairs rather than the specified timber: "Wood seemed too cosy - limestone suited the way I wanted to interpret the space."
On the stairs and upstairs in the two bedrooms and study, commercial-quality carpet is used, a specially blended rich tone of black, aubergine and dark purple.
To enlarge the sense of space in the living area and to double the impact of the city skyline views, one wall has been mirrored. On the mirrored wall, a fireplace has been installed - easier than expected in an apartment building, but it helps that Barnett, who says he has "a thing about fireplaces", is on the top floor.
Some of the most major changes were made to the kitchen/dining area with its adjoining terrace.
The south-facing terrace has a "boring aspect", according to Barnett, and so he decided to turn the whole thing into a reflection pond and commissioned a bronze statue to become its focal point.
"At night, when it's lit, you don't look beyond it." The kitchen, designed by Barnett, is more like a bar than anything else -the bench, of subtly grained Statuary Venato marble, is
much wider than average, holding a tray of drinks flanked by two huge ginger jars, and there's still plenty of workspace; glass storage.
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