Our Founders | The Building, The Brief, The Home

This building had a very particular presence before you even went inside. What was it like to know that it could be yours?

"We had loved this building from the outside for a long time. The brutalist conviction of it - the way it just sits there completely confident in what it is. When the opportunity came up it felt less like a decision and more like something that was supposed to happen. Though I should say - it was very dilapidated when we got inside. It needed to be completely gutted. But that was exciting rather than daunting. There is something very freeing about a blank canvas inside a building that already knows exactly who it is."

John redesigned the entire interior. Where did the work actually begin?

"With the floor plan. John's background in architectural practice’s meant his first instinct was always spatial - how does the space actually need to function rather than how does it currently function. The kitchen and bathroom were the biggest redesigns. The existing layout did not breathe the way it needed to. Once the floor plan was right the rest followed - new ceilings and floors throughout, the outdoor areas entirely reimagined with new decking and planting. It was chaotic at times the way all renovations are. But we were both very clear on where we were going, which made even the difficult moments feel purposeful."

Working inside a heritage building is a specific kind of discipline. Did it ever feel like a restriction?

"Never a restriction. A direction. The building has its own point of view and it tells you very clearly when you are working with it and when you are working against it. The temptation in any renovation is to impose your ideas on a space. A building with this much intelligence in its original design simply does not permit that. Every decision that felt right here was a decision that was in conversation with what Harold Shafer had already made. That is not limiting. That is one of the most interesting constraints you can work within."

The material palette is very specific. Robertsons brick, white ash, nickel hardware. How did those choices come together?

"They came from the building first. We were committed to being genuinely sympathetic to the architecture rather than just referencing it - there is a difference between those two things. We specified Robertsons brick for floors throughout and carpet in the bedrooms. White ash for all the joinery and the ceilings because it had the right warmth without competing with the brick. Nickel hardware throughout because it sat quietly in that palette without announcing itself. When you keep a palette that tight the space develops its own coherence. And then you have a base that can hold a lot - furniture, art, objects, the things that make it personal. That layering is where the home becomes yours."

What was the emotional brief? What were you designing toward?

"To walk in and exhale. That was it. We run two businesses and we needed this home to be the counterpoint to that - genuinely calm, not austere. I remember realising it had worked when I noticed I was talking more quietly inside the house. Something about the proportions and the materials together just settles you physically before it registers as aesthetic. This was a space to exhale."

You work with clients every day on specifying their homes. What did being the client reveal about that process?

"We started where we always start with clients - with how we actually live rather than how we imagine we live. What does a home need to do for us? What do we genuinely need versus what do we think we need? The interior came together from those questions. What surprised me was how quickly we landed on things. I expected to deliberate more. Scale was everything - we were always conscious of not crowding the space, of letting it breathe. We kept pulling back, kept editing. It confirmed for me that the edit is always where the quality is. And I think I was a better client than I expected to be. I really loved being on that side of it."