Recent years of spending more time at home – for work, rest and play – have seen a spotlight on the integrated at-home bar. Offering more than just a convenient spot to mix drinks, the integrated bar creates an elevated entertaining experience, often tucked within kitchen joinery or in an adjacent dining space. And, as it so happens, at-home bars don’t need to take up a lot of space; they can be small in scale and seamlessly blend into their surroundings.
These six designers make a case for the at-home bar, cleverly expressed as a piece of joinery, an extension of a material palette or, simply, a ‘hole in the wall’.
Malvern Residence 2
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Design: Doherty Design Studio
In Melbourne’s southeast suburb of Malvern, Doherty Design Studio transformed a 1980s home into a true entertainer’s delight. The primary entertaining space, the kitchen, features white, pink and navy tones, which flow seamlessly into adjacent joinery. Housed within this unit is a small-scale bar lined with polished brass, creating an opulent station to channel one’s inner mixologist.
Photography by Derek Swalwell
Photography by Derek Swalwell
Photography by Derek Swalwell
Photography by Thomas De Bruyne
Amsterdam Loft
Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Design: I+Y Interior Architecture
I+Y Interior Architecture adopted a minimalist approach while designing this loft-style apartment in Amsterdam’s city centre. By employing smoked Eucalyptus and textured travertine as the foundational materials, they achieved a warm and comforting atmosphere throughout the home. These qualities are extended to a discreet, metre-wide bar in the living area, which blends in with the surrounding joinery.
Malvern East Terrace House
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Design: Studio Esteta
Studio Esteta converted a single-storey Victorian home in south-east Melbourne into a keepsake of southern Italy. Travertine, timber, handmade bricks and smooth tiles combine cohesively to create a warm yet sophisticated interior environment. In the kitchen, timber manifests in custom floor-to-ceiling cabinetry, including an integrated bar with white marble and gold accents.
Photography by Derek Swalwell
Photography by Derek Swalwell
Photography by Brooke Holm
Photography by Brooke Holm
Upper West Side
Location: New York City, U.S
Design: Worrell Yeung
Worrell Yeung employed a minimal yet lively material palette to revitalise this apartment in New York’s Upper West Side. Just off of the kitchen, a hole-in-the-wall bar reflects the striking marble island bench, only in a deep-green colour, adding a touch of drama as well as luxury.
First Blush
Location: Sydney, Australia
Design: Smac Studio
Smac Studio’s First Blush project in Sydney’s Dover Heights demonstrates the studio’s knowledge of space and materials and how both can benefit family life. “Eclectic, glamorous, harmonious and zen” are the words the client used to describe their ideal home, which Smac Studio have achieved in the kitchen’s rich materiality of blush-and-bronze marble and black fluted timber. This palette is echoed, or rather, mirrored, in the adjacent wall-mounted bar.
Photography by Anson Smart
Photography by Anson Smart
Photography by Anson Smart
Photography by Anson Smart
Gunnamatta House
Location: Sydney, Australia
Design: Akin Atelier
This home in Sydney’s Gunnamatta Bay, designed by Akin Atelier, is where contemporary Australia meets mid-century Spain. The kitchen sets the scene for the grounding, material-rich interiors – custom walnut and brass joinery, including an integrated bar on the left, fashioned against a custom marble and quartzite benchtop.
