Potts Point is Sydney’s most densely populated neighbourhood, with over 20,000 people housed primary in small apartments, in an area of just under 1.5 square kilometres.
One of these apartments is a particularly challenging 35-square-metre inner city pad, that’s just been renovated by Five Foot One Design.
The brief was to transform the floorplan into an ideal dwelling for the owner, who had just moved to the area from a very different kind of home.
‘Prior to moving to Potts Point, he lived at a farm just outside Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands,’ Five Foot One Design director Kathryn Thompson says. ‘His work and social life demanded he spend more time in Sydney, so he bought this little apartment and asked us to upgrade it.
‘This was the smallest space we’d ever worked with, and the apartment itself was also incredibly basic. There was virtually no storage. Plus, the strata requirements meant we couldn’t move any of the plumbing waste points. So, we had to be clever with our design.’
Since every cubic centimetre was precious space that couldn’t be wasted, Kathryn’s team completed an exhaustive deep dive into the client’s routine.
‘We looked at his WFH requirements, his cooking habits, even how many shirts he owned. Every response was carefully considered and drove every design decision,’ she adds.
In addition to referencing the simplicity of Japanese architecture, Five Foot One Design also looked to the compact below-deck cabins of yacht crews to create some clever storage solutions.
The timber living room table was designed with interchangeable legs to quickly convert from a coffee table to a desk, while the well-stocked kitchen looks surprisingly spacious thanks to the mirrored stainless-steel surfaces. And in the bedroom, the bedhead and bed base were incorporated into the custom cabinetry, allowing for a calming, clutter-free aesthetic.
‘Every kitchen utensil, every item of clothing, every possession has a home. But it’s still welcoming and friendly,’ Kathryn adds. ‘I love seeing the sunlight play on the walls and bounce off the carefully placed mirrors.’
But the biggest compliment came when the client called her only a few weeks after moving in, saying how perfectly everything was working. ‘That was my favourite part of the project’ Kathryn says!
