My Space | Ameé Allsop

We learn the ‘poetics of space’ with designer and artist Amee Allsop, who shares how materiality informs her new family home.

New York-based Australian architectural designer and artist Amee Allsop takes us through her Hamptons family home and creative studio. We discover what inspires her and how it informs her work and home life.

This feature originally appeared in est magazine issue #40

How is your space a reflection of you?

Ameé Allsop: Our space reflects our values – quality time as a family, relaxed entertaining with friends and a space to cultivate creativity. When we notice certain patterns of our everyday life, we make little adjustments to make things flow easier. When we have friends over, we make cocktails in the northeast corner of the kitchen, and so recently, we rearranged the shelves there to accommodate this growing passion. It used to have a mix of coffee cups and spice jars, but now it’s taken on a new life.

In moments of inspiration, we can easily go to the studio since it is under the same roof yet separate from the living. The way our studio is organised is always evolving with what we are working on. Since moving here, it has been rearranged three or four times from photo studio to collaborative workbenches to quiet corners.

Describe your design and interior style:

Ameé Allsop: I am motivated by the poetics of space. In the design process, I tend to start with a material and imagine its possibilities in relation to form and go on the journey of reduction until it feels right. It’s an intuitive process. I tend to create spaces that are calm, which I think is misinterpreted as bright and white.

I love warm, natural materials and tones. That is what drew me to our house. The exposed wood structure gives it character and richness but in a minimal way. It gives the space a rhythm and familiarity that delivers a sense of calm.

Materiality informs your work; how does it play out in this house?

Ameé Allsop: I’m very conscious of how materials affect us – our little wooden house has a certain feeling to it. For example, it literally sounds different to how a concrete house sounds underfoot and therefore feels different– I can hear where the boys play from almost every room in the house.. and what they’re playing with! I love having a travertine stone coffee table because it sounds nice when I set my teacup or cocktail glass down. I love our thick wood dining table because it feels solid and warm to lean on and spend long dinners.

Does living and working amongst your own design on a daily basis further inform your design process and creativity?

Ameé Allsop: Absolutely. I love being able to experience my pieces in situ, and allow them space to breathe and wear in over time. It also gives me the opportunity to experiment with them – my two-piece coffee table has been arranged and rearranged in all sorts of ways across the living room and I think it’s important that I experience it hands-on as opposed to theoretically.

The room you gravitate to?

Ameé Allsop: The southwest corner of the house. It has the best light and views out to the woods without a neighbour in sight. We often watch for the local family of deer to roam through.

Favourite things?

Ameé Allsop: My Noguchi dining pendant light sculpture, travertine coffee table, a vintage Olivetti typewriter and etching of the Chrysler building gifted by my husband.

How does your workspace inspire you?

Ameé Allsop: It’s a work in progress. But I love having books and material samples around me. I’m on the hunt for a vintage wood drafting board, but then I think I will be inspired to design a different studio space.

Which unifying elements do your home and workspace share?

Ameé Allsop: They are both an ever-evolving work in progress. Nothing is too perfect, and nothing is set–in–stone. If we want to turn the couch around, we turn it around. The same goes for the studio. They both morph into spaces that suit us in the season we’re in, whatever that may be.

Where do you wind down?

Ameé Allsop: In winter, around the fireplace. In summer, the edge of the living room – all the doors open, and we love to sit on the threshold between the living room and the deck as the sun rolls around.

What makes your home a home?

Ameé Allsop: The lives within it make this house a home. Whether it’s meaningful pieces that my husband and I found together overseas; or books that inspire us; or a cluster of carefully selected lego pieces that my son has arranged on the coffee table, mid-build; life and joy find their way into the house through the lives that live here. Within that joy, I think space becomes a home.