Soft centre

An intriguing dialogue is at play in this Sydney home between the Brutalist bent of its concrete and steel architecture and the delicate softness of its interior design.

- JUDY PASCOE

It’s not often an interior designer has a second chance to completely re-imagine a home. But that opportunity presented itself recently to Anna Trefely of Esoteriko when her clients bought a Sydney eastern suburbs house that she had worked on for the previous owners. Built in 2020 to a design by Matthew Woodward Architecture, the five-level concrete and steel house occupies a steep slope that had previously been partly inaccessible. With a wonderfully open aspect the home has bedrooms on the top level, living spaces in the middle and soaring full-height windows that allow close engagement with the treetops and skyline.

Keen entertainers, the new owners were especially attracted by the home’s many generous spaces for hosting dinners and parties, as well as the self-contained studio that could function as a retreat for their teenage children.

As she had worked on the home only two years earlier, Anna was well acquainted with all its nooks and crannies. “It was an intriguing opportunity to rethink familiar spaces in a new context, considering the different tastes and preferences of the new occupants,” she says. The clients had moved from a light, bright terrace, “with a Hamptons flavour”, so the home’s robust Brutalist look was a completely new aesthetic for them. “Initially they approached the concrete shell with a degree of trepidation,” says Anna. “Though they appreciated what we had done for the initial design, they wanted to make the home theirs and it needed some tweaks to reflect their style.