Architects at Home | Adriana Hanna
After close to two decades in her Melbourne home, Adriana Hanna, former director of architecture at Kennedy Nolan, continues to evolve the Tudor Revival dwelling from a testing ground for exploration into a much-loved family sanctuary filled with character and stories.
If there is a feature of Adriana Hanna’s Melbourne home that is indicative of the rigorous discipline, design ingenuity and considered aesthetic present in her work, it’s perhaps the light-filled kitchen with its sculptural island taking pride of place. When the two-storey, three-bedroom dwelling was purchased, the cooking zone “was centrally located in the plan in complete darkness,” says the former director of architecture at acclaimed Melbourne firm Kennedy Nolan. “You couldn’t actually be in the kitchen without a light on.” Clinical problem-solving while considering the immeasurable value of heritage character would prove to be a prediction as to where Hanna’s life – both at home and work – would go. What had started as a temporary home while the Sydney-born architect was still finishing her Masters at RMIT would eventually become her everyday sanctuary with her then-fiancé now-husband before their twin daughters were born.
Hanna landed a job at Kennedy Nolan in its early days, and this Preston property is the place she and her family have called home for close to 20 years. The house’s original footprint was a key purchasing factor. “We felt like we had enough room; if anything, we wanted to reduce it,” recalls Hanna. “We wanted to make it perform better and improve the amenity of the layout – it was all about bringing light in.” Improving thermal performance, restumping, insulation and solar power were all to come, but the architect wanted to live within the four walls before making any changes, small or significant, “to understand its problems, in order to pursue an approach of ‘sufficiency and preservation’ without diminishing the scale of the original home”.
The focus started outside with the couple getting their hands dirty, “literally rolling boulders into the yard”, and researching iconic landscape design endemic to the area such as Ellis Stone gardens. “The block is generous, yet the yard was a huge expanse of concrete with one tree,” she says. “We went about creating a rambling native garden, which would provide an aspect from the main living area and kitchen.”
The dwelling’s Tudor Revival style with Arts and Crafts characteristics has guided a rich tapestry of considered aesthetic additions in keeping with the home’s evolving personality. “I’ve attempted to draw on the unconventional but also reinterpret and amplify motifs from Arts and Crafts architects such as CFA Voysey and Edwin Lutyens,” says Hanna. Generous feature timber framing around room entrances is a case in point. “That’s me reimagining some of the traditional details in Tudor Revival and Arts and Crafts buildings. The detail comes from coining, which is present in the facade of the home. It’s typically used to strengthen a corner or express a structural opening – it’s normally manifested in stone or brick. I wanted a contemporary association with this original detail without being ostentatious.”
While an eye for detail remains key, Hanna has also seen the scale and scope of work across her desk at Kennedy Nolan expand with ability, ambition and time. “We’re in so many different spaces: commercial, education, multi-res, single-res, so we have this huge responsibility with sustainability, what it means to build on Country. These were not issues present when we commenced our studies or career,” she says. “Architecture impacts everyone, and it is a representation of our times. Design and architecture are barometers of the culture we are living in at any given time.”
The home’s use of tone and texture is identifiable as a Kennedy Nolan trait, and Hanna, of course, has pushed both further in her own home. An immersive pale eucalyptus shade used in the primary bedroom and bathroom recalls the firm’s tonal palette preferences, but “for the west-facing spaces, I really wanted the colour to glow with the sun, so I explored these citrus tones – at Kennedy Nolan, we haven’t really looked at citrus tones; we often look at secondary hues,” says the architect. “I had an artwork from the Warmun region with natural ochres, so I was trying to replicate that tertiary hue. It’s a colour from the earth that imbues a sense of warmth.”
Even the more neutral expanses have been subject to a tactile treatment. “I have a real aversion to plasterboard, and it’s an aversion we also have in the practice, as we prefer honest materials. We explored natural textures across all planes, such as the render finish, which is unpigmented and retains the colour of the sand mix.”
Hanna didn’t want the dwelling to lose its material presence through the renovation, “so even the new floors, where we’ve gone from original floorboards to stone, reference English flagstone floors prevalent among Tudor Revival homes.” There is a serendipitous twist here – the architect only discovered that the material was Egyptian limestone after it was chosen, a subconscious nod to her own heritage. Serendipity weaves through this cherished abode, an intangible, inviting feeling to complement Hanna’s mannered, slow-but-steady approach. “It was definitely an exercise of what is worth retaining, what is integral to the house without compromising its integrity,” she says.
While the kitchen’s central location was ideal, its dark, heavy feeling was far from it. Now, a curved sweep of warm timber-panelled storage melding into the ochre-toned ceiling both grounds and elevates the cooking and dining zone’s sunny disposition. A four-metre-long island stretches between the two, mirroring and exaggerating the wall’s curve with its own generous concave. “We were always hosting, and I always felt like I was very separate to the people in the dining room, so I wanted that direct dialogue while I’m prepping,” says Hanna. As for the terracotta terrazzo benchtop, it was a lucky find befitting someone who has an insatiable design eye: “I deliberately looked for something that wasn’t a typical stone, and so it was a coincidence that it was dead stock sitting in the warehouse in Artedomus, and I went, ‘What’s that?’”
Hanna has a knack for that oft-used word – curation – driven by a taste for the eccentric and original. “I have an insatiable appetite for design objects. I like that in a heritage home it can demonstrate that culture and style are transhistorical,” she says. “The decisions that drive my curation are really personal – any piece should be a reflection of the owner.” She invested in some covetable pieces – “my first piece was the Togo by Michal Ducaroy, customised in velvet” – and while her favourite design treasure may be her Tokyo Chaise by Charlotte Perriand, Hanna’s relationships with makers and designers built over two decades have manifested into pieces with special places in both her home and heart. “Knowing something about the people that created the pieces is really lovely for me. I’m revisiting my dining area pendant with Simone Tops [of Studio Tops]. We’ve just had a good rapport together and that’s going to be so much more meaningful than the George Nelson light I have there. It has a story and tells of a relationship of someone I respect and admire.”
This intent has led to a place that continues to reflect the personal story of its custodians. It’s “a self-portrait in a way,” says the architect, who has now moved onto her own practice, Adriana Hanna Office. “A home doesn’t have to be, but it should be; it should represent the people that live in it.” Part of this is making peace with imperfection, such as with the kitchen island, where Hanna wishes she had done “this very heavy leg on the end – I wish I did something bolder”. Mostly though, it is about the way architecture and the curated items within it can become layered with meaning, like the Ross Didier dining table that for Hanna remains a timeless touchstone, representative of the value of creativity and its ability to foster connection and communication. “Ross has worked with me so much, and I’m so proud that I have one of these – I sit at this table every night.”
Architecture and interior design by Adriana Hanna. Build by CBD Contracting Group.
Artwork by Ella Dunn, Ted May and Sundance Studio.
- 项目文案：Virginia Jen
- 项目摄影：Sean Fennessy
- 转载自：The Local Project
- 图片@The Local Project
- 语言：英语
- 编辑：序赞网
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