04 HOME TOUR Referencing key brutalist features and merging them with soft accents was key to ensuring the architecture and interiors spoke the same language. Naturally, this required a significant number of bespoke designs. “All the joinery is bespoke. The sculptural concrete bath was designed and made specifically for this space: we wanted something deeply textural, and it has a beautiful pitting detail that required considerable prototyping to achieve,” she shares. “Many of the light fittings are custom, as are many of the furniture pieces. It is a large home, and it naturally called for pieces made to suit its scale,” Samantha continues. In addition to materiality, natural light was another way the team softened the brutalist elements of the build. Samantha explains, “The clients had lived opposite the site before purchasing it, which meant they knew the block intimately, including how the light moved through it across the day and how the garden would feel at different times of year.” “The house was designed around the light, and also around providing privacy for its occupants. Throughout the day the light shifts quite beautifully, particularly in the late afternoon. The extended garden beds at roof level help protect the interior from Queensland’s harsher sun. We were deliberate about not over-illuminating the rooms artificially, and the bespoke lighting throughout was designed to complement the natural light rather than compete with it.” While for many, the kitchen forms the heart of the home, the brief for this build was to centre the home on the garden, with the pool and the central lawn as the physical anchor. For Samantha, this tied the philosophy of the home together, which she sums up as “A home confident in its materiality, generous in how it lives, and deeply connected to the landscape around it.” As for favourite spaces, there’s no competition. “The garden room is the space I keep coming back to. It opens completely on three sides, and when the doors stack back, the travertine crazy paving runs continuously from inside to out with no visible threshold between the room and the landscape. In winter it does the complete opposite: curtains drawn, fire lit, completely cocooned. The range that room has within the same four walls is something I find genuinely beautiful.” “The house was designed around the light, and also around providing privacy for its occupants. Throughout the day the light shifts quite beautifully, particularly in the late afternoon.” — Samantha Leigh INTERIOR DESIGN AND INTERIOR ARCHITECT: Samantha Leigh Interiors, samanthaleigh.com.au, @samantha.leigh.interiors STYLIST: Jack Milenkovic, @jackmilenkovic EXTERIOR ARCHITECTURE: Tim Stewart Architects, timstewartarchitects.com.au, @timstewartarchitects LANDSCAPE: Wild Studio, wildstudio.com.au, @wildlandscapearchitecture PHOTOGRAPHER: Dave Wheeler, @dave_wheeler WORDS: Olivia Storrie
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