John Liu and Steph Richardson of Inbetween Architecture have delivered us a truly remarkable and beautiful home. From the outset, they took time and listened to what makes our family of three tick, our backgrounds, our interests and what we wanted from a home. 

We already knew we liked Inbetween’s work. It is understated, yet so clever in form, proportion and use of space. That topped with creativity we could never dream of is what has made our house a wonderful place to be.      

With any building project, there are challenges and ours came with a few. John and Steph navigated through the tricky planning, heritage overlay requirements of the existing dwelling and meticulously resolved any technical challenges that came with the new design. All dealt with before building commenced. Their choice of a quality builder with architect pedigree, attention to detail and a high level of organizational skills, resulted in a build with exceptional quality across all trade sets. All driven by a schedule that started on time and finished on time.     

We’ve been back in our home for 3 months and we all still marvel at the beauty of it and feel overwhelmed by the functionality of the design. It’s like we’re on a dreamy holiday. I hope I don’t wake up and find it’s not real.

John took considerable time and effort to understand what our requirements were and what was important for our family. This was a pleasant change from other architects who basically had an idea and wanted to impose that on us.

 John's design ethos, concentrating on simple light-filled spaces and creating the home as a sanctuary really struck a chord with us. The design provided us with exactly that and is functionally exactly what we wanted.

 Our home is now just a "lovely place to live in", as simple as that. It is a feeling, more so than just a list of design elements. 

 John and Steph project managed the build process to ensure the quality of the build and integrity of the design were maintained at all times. This was an important service for us being novices in the renovation process.

 John and Steph are a pleasure to work with

It is such a pleasure to review John Liu and Steph Richardson at Inbetween. There are several impressive things about the way they work, but in terms of the process itself, what we were most struck by (in comparison to other firms we had approached) was their attention from the start to understanding who we are, how we live now and how we are likely to live into the future as our family grows up. This has allowed them to design a house that is truly for US and as the build has taken place we can see this vision emerging, piece by piece.

"While from a pragmatic point of view the best thing about Inbetween is their creative intelligence and design nous (because you get a great result), the confidence we have been able to have in their advice and integrity has been priceless. This has made the process not just incredibly smooth, but actually FUN (which was most unexpected!). It’s without hesitation that I highly recommend John and Steph at Inbetween.

Double storied with seven bedrooms, four bathrooms and a pool. Our dream home was purchased in 2011 with bigger dreams to come. The structure of this house was strong – slab floor ground and first, double brick walls, grade A soil. And built in the 1970s, this place was a mansion. The only issue, the seven bedrooms were the size of modern-day closets. Living areas are enclosed and dark. Bathrooms are cramped and WIRs – well minimal to say the least. So our bigger dreams were of modernisation, space and light.

"Fast forward twelve months and there you have it. Transformation into a four-bedroom plus study, four-bathroom house with soaring ceilings and light-filled open living areas.  

"The favourite part of our renovations is without question the soaring cathedral-like sky-lights that not only brought light in but created space above without impacting on the roofline. Visually our house flowed from room to room with the feature stair case leading directly to the open tallow-wood living areas lit up by the northern sun. This flow continued to the outdoors with the clever relocation of an outdoor balcony to link to the previously isolated pool area allowing for an expansive outdoor entertaining area second to none.

"We asked for a minimalistic design and the clever use of joinery gave hidden space and storage to avoid clutter. The house itself was created with a six-star energy rating with regulated air flow and clever maximisation of the insulating properties of the brick and slab structure.

The way John transformed our house was remarkable. The renovation for our 3 bedroom unit was long overdue. One of the remarkable things John did was to make the property appear to double its actual size. 

"By re-sectioning the space in a much more practical and modern way, not only have we gained a spacious walk-in pantry, we have a huge kitchen with plentiful of bench space as well. Knowing our love of entertaining, John made the kitchen and dining area the focus of the house.

"Working with John was such a pleasure. Not only did John understand our vision for the house, by providing his professional advice, he gave us our dream house.

Steph and John designed and project managed a major renovation of a 1960s-built apartment that last had a facelift in the 1980s. They were thorough at every stage, planning, contracting to tradespeople, dealing with the planning authority and body corporate. When the inevitable problems surfaced they were excellent in their communication with us and all relevant parties.

We were very hands off once the design plans were finalised, we just left them to it and were very pleased with the result. The whole project was painless and it came in on budget, thank you Steph and John.

An amazing job John, the stand had so much positive feedback and many compliments. It created a dynamic interactive space that complimented our furniture design elements without the stand detracting or overwhelming the pieces, which was our agreed upon brief. It has your signature. Perfect design zen.

 I just wanted to share that your design has been such a success. Many people have commented on its refinement and concept. Everyone has been walking in from all sides and the plinth's use, particularly for the coffee table, have definitely elevated interest in pieces. Well done on a fantastic design and collaboration!

We absolutely loved working with Inbetween Architecture and Aldona Pajdak Interior Design. John, Steph & Aldona were fantastic in maximising every inch of the space as we desperately needed it! They worked with our brand and vision to create an environment that our team are now thrilled to be working in. Our team had super tight deadlines to keep to, and the guys were there for us every step of the way; morning, noon & night, answering each and every question that we had throughout the whole process.

We would absolutely recommend Inbetween Architecture to anyone looking to create or revive a space!