Houses

For the architect, designer, home owner, home builder or anyone simply interested in the best residential design, every issue of Houses tells the story of inspirational homes, their surrounds and the products that complete them. Through generous pictorial coverage from leading photographers, floor plans and lists of selected products, you share the delight of each home presented. You’ll also meet some of the creative people who designed them and keep up with the latest design trends and issues. Be inspired!

Musings

Contributors

Houses

Houses magazine, then and now • To celebrate our 150th issue, we sifted through the archives to reminisce about how Houses has evolved in its 34-year history – because it’s not a proper milestone birthday without a “when they were young” flick through the photo album.

Fresh finds • Prepare for sun-soaked retreats with this selection of poolside loungers, colourful ceramics and playful lights.

MOONSHINE BY BRIT ANDRESEN ARCHITECT • On Minjerribah, an architect’s keen knowledge of the island setting distils an immersive experience of nature, inspiring a house that is at once architecturally rigorous and environmentally sensitive.

STEEL HOUSE/ STONE HOUSE BY RETALLACK THOMPSON • A narrow city site is a complex but rewarding testing ground for two architect owners, who have paired a craggy sandstone terrace with a slender companion building in the design of their own mixed-use, multigenerational home.

MULI MULI BY DFJ ARCHITECTS • Small but sufficient, this home on the New South Wales north coast pursues a reductive approach to the holiday house, proposing small-footprint simplicity as the antidote to busy city life.

MULI MULI MEET THE OWNERS • Liam Farlow and Giselle Finnane approached DFJ Architects with a brief for a small but robust beach shack on a coastal site north of Byron Bay. Jenna Reed Burns spoke to the couple about their experience of working with an architect.

Lachlan Seegers Architect • Lachlan Seegers grounds his work in detail-oriented site responses, which he arrives at through “an incredibly intensive process.” The calm, restorative spaces that paradoxically result offer a reprieve from the hectic pace of daily life.

Clean up your act • From crisp, colourful tiles to sophisticated wood-and-leather bar carts, these curated finds can refresh and elevate kitchens, bathrooms and laundries.

HOUSE ON A LANE BY ROB KENNON ARCHITECTS • Unostentatious but meticulously considered, this Melbourne home is an evolved response to an all-too-familiar brief: juggling heritage constraints and limited space with the demands of family life.

MAYFAIR BY WHISPERING SMITH • In suburban Perth, a decisive new house honours the homeowner’s aspirations for monumental structure, using brave formal order to frame opportunities for light, airiness and calm introspection.

HELLENIC HOMECOMING BY MARIA DANOS ARCHITECTURE • Grecian stone, ocean colours and fluted profiles recall faded Athenian glamour in this reworking of a heritage home in Melbourne’s Little Greece precinct, transforming a dark, unremarkable series of rooms into a dreamlike spatial sequence.

Doshi Levien • For the past 20 years, Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien have com bined their complementary skills and knowledge to create design pieces with flair, originality and deeply embedded storytelling.

Balmoral Residenceby Kieron Gait Architects • For Kieron Gait, this modest renovation in the Brisbane suburbs was a ‘spare-time labour of love.’ Completed in 2008 by Kieron and his partner Wei Shun Lee, it was both their own home and the unintentional start to their practice.

CASA MIA BY CAROLINE DI COSTA ARCHITECT AND IREDALE PEDERSEN HOOK ARCHITECTS • On a corner site in the Perth suburb of City Beach, a dynamic and intriguing...