Simple moves make a maximum impact at the Oak Residence in Matcham. Three buildings, the original cottage, a later addition, and a new pavilion are united by sandstone from the nearby Gosford quarry, consistent windows, and traditional pitched roof forms. Vernacular materials and considered proportions deliver an elegant result satisfying the client’s brief that included the need to address the threat of bushfires. The garden references the built form, with formal planting and sandstone walls adjacent to the four-bedroom home.
Photography: Ross Honeysett, Nick Watts
Smart Design Studio, founded in 1997, has a reputation as a multi-disciplinary design studio of excellence. With a diverse range of design projects - master-planning for new urban centres, public projects, commercial, cultural and retail spaces, multi-unit residential developments and private residences - Smart Design Studio produces buildings and interiors of elegant simplicity, a quality which unites our portfolio across differences in scale.
Our studio is run with five separate teams, each with its own area of specialisation. These teams share knowledge and work together at critical stages of the design process, allowing the expertise of one team to influence the designs of others. For example, our interior design team may assist the architectural teams at sketch design stages to develop good space planning and later in the documentation stage with the selection of finishes or lighting design. Conversely, the architectural teams assist the interiors team with structural knowledge, building regulation requirements and construction techniques. And the new designs developed by our private residential team are transferred to our larger projects after they have been constructed and proven to be both effective and efficient.