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Forest Hill Residence
By : BURDIFILEK
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 17th edition
Discipline : Interior Design
Categories : Residence / Residential Space > 5,400 sq.ft. (> 500 sq.m.) : Gold Certification
Categories : Special Awards / Interior Design + Stairs : Gold Certification
For this Georgian-style home, a design firm has crafted an interior of warmth and restraint. Designed for a textile designer, the interior is a welcome respite from the bold colors and patterns that fill their office. This residence offers a harmonious interior enveloped in neutral tones and natural finishes.
The design firm is attracted to residential projects that are tuned to balance, proportion, and stringent architectural geometries, as well as clients who are attuned to the rigors of custom design and willingness to take risks.
The risk on this occasion was to allow the designers to be as reductive as possible by removing such standard fixed elements as baseboards, moldings, wall scones, and door handles. Various living spaces throughout the main level are divided not by doors but by ample thresholds that reach the ceiling. Clean, seemingly naked walls read more as stretched canvases designed to catch changes in light throughout the day.
This pared-back approach could be described as creating an “interior skin” for each room. When surface changes do occur, they are expressed in a new and subtle way. For example, the two-inch gap at the base of the wall is treated as though a piece of built-in furniture by cladding it in bronze.
The interior’s overall palette combines crisp white marble and textured neutral wallcoverings. These tone-on-tone ensembles are paired with hard surfaces in leathered Canadian black granite and vast amounts of European white oak. Nine custom-milled oak cupboards, each reaching floor to ceiling, occupy one wall in the family room. This room, the largest and most used space in the home, comprised of the kitchen, dining, and living area. Integrated handles along the cabinetry’s beveled edges disguise the millwork as being operable and hide from view a host of kitchen appliances, pantry, dishware sets and a hidden bar.
Other furnishings are carefully curated to create unencumbered focal points. In the formal dining room, the custom table’s reflective surface, plays off a stunning silver chandelier designed by Milan architect Vincent De Cotiis.
The home’s Georgian exterior belies the interior’s otherwise subdued modernism. Walk through the entryway’s fritted glass doors and the quiet residential street outside falls away, transitioning into an unimpeded view from the foyer to a glimpse of the backyard terrace with a dining area and living space.
At the house’s core is a Thassos marble spiral staircase bathed in natural light from a pitched skylight and featuring a designed blackened steel railing, which draws the eye to the second-floor landing to a three-dimensional artwork by Dennis Lin.
On the upper level, bedrooms with ensuites occupy one side, and beyond is a series of adjacent rooms that work in harmony with one another, expressing a sense of calm repose.
Furnishings throughout the house, a mix of curated pieces and custom designs, add a final layer of atmospheric continuity and comfort. The overall effect of the entire house is dry, luxurious, and embracing of a sense of warmth and calm serenity.
Collaboration
Architect : Wayne Swadron Studios
General Contractor : Mazenga Building Group
Manufacturer - Distributor : Crystal Tile & Marble Ltd.
Manufacturer - Distributor : AST Stone Ltd.
