A waterfront house by interior design studio Lawless & Meyerson and architects MHNDU in Sydney’s East, where luxurious finishes frame bay views.
Architects MHNDU and interior design studio Lawless & Meyerson designed a three-level house for family to gather and relax, that bows down to views of both Watsons Bay and the Sydney Harbour. Meeting their criteria of light, low maintenance and comfortable, both parties achieved beauty in simplicity; often the hardest mission of all.
Lawless & Meyerson are affiliated with MHNDU, where co-director Brian Meyerson is also one of three principals. MHNDU specialise in developments, from bespoke homes to large-scale, multi-residential projects. They became a united force in meeting the client’s requests of an unfussy, light-filled space that’s easy to maintain with lots of storage.
Both studios focused on creating a cohesive relationship between indoors and outdoors, ensuring each space can be opened up with floor-to-ceiling glazing and concealed with external blinds and internal drapes. Their collaborative efforts also created the arresting spine of the home – the spiral staircase that links all three levels, with a circular skylight. “It’s the first thing you see when you walk through the door, hard to draw, [but] harder to build” said Lawless & Meyerson co-director Jo Lawless.
The home’s floor plan was unusually shaped on the living level, where the shared spaces were located. The Lawless and Meyerson team decided to link the open plan space with a 12-metre-long joinery unit in white veneer, eliminating the client’s storage issue.
Lawless & Meyerson kept to a warm neutral scheme of lime-washed oak floors, white walls, white timber joinery, bamboo silk rugs and natural linen soft furnishings. They selected key pieces from Space Furniture, dedece and Poliform to furnish the home, while lighting fixtures from vboaustralia and Euroluce.
Jo Lawless said the one thing that resonated in the house was how calm, peaceful and relaxing it felt. “Being a holiday home that’s exactly what we were all striving for,” she said.
