#RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
LAVA director Chris Bosse gives his Sydney townhouse a contemporary makeover
When the director of Australian architecture practice LAVA, Chris Bosse, acquired a new Sydney townhouse in desperate need of a renovation, he decided to personally tackle the challenge of transforming it into his new home.
The property, named Tivoli Terrace and located within Paddington, a historic inner city district of Sydney, is coined by Bosse as a ‘21st century reinterpretation of a 1880s terrace house’. Bosse’s aim was to merge the house's existing structural features with the firm’s signature clean and contemporary style, in order to create his personal vision of a modern but effortlessly timeless living space.
Bosse used a calming tonal range of neutral colours and natural wood that delightfully contrasts with his selection of furnishings, which feature sporadic and vibrant pops of colour. Pale French oak timber floors were carefully laid out over the original wood flooring and old terracotta tiles to add a sense of unity and flow throughout the open plan dining, living, and kitchen areas on the ground level.
A large opening on the ground floor, protected by a sliding system of slatted timber frames creates, when open, a seamless transition between outdoor and indoor environments. It also supplies the house with a generous amount of light and gives the inhabitants complete control of privacy, heat and airflow.
The kitchen, which Bosse envisioned as the ‘heart of the property’ features a glass splashback lining to reflect light and a striking custom-made CNC milled ‘surfboard shaped’ island bench - its flowing, curvy form brings to mind the firm's other, larger scale designs.
Bosse incorporated local craftsmanship with high tech manufacturing methods to create the property’s warm but minimal and unmistakably contemporary atmosphere, a symbiosis of old and new that anyone would be happy to call home.
