This was a unique project from the outset. The owners approached us with the unusual circumstances of a three-bedroom owner-occupied home, with three two-bedroom units arranged behind it, descending towards the rear access.
The site was on a steep slope, which presented both opportunities – each unit would have its own level and outlook, for example – and some obvious constraints to logistics, facilities and services. Our design makes the most of this topography by placing the units on individual terraces, descending towards the rear access, with only the main house visible from the front. As well as offering unrivalled privacy, this approach gives each unit a sense of autonomy and separation from its neighbours.
We chose materials consistent with the surrounding mid-century homes: warm brick and clean, white rendering. Metal screen gates and slatted timber fencing provide texture to soften the bold Modernist design. The dwellings are also designed in line with solar passive and energy efficient principles, open to the northern aspect with deep awnings and shade structures around windows and balconies. The result is a beautiful small-scale development, tucked away in Bayswater with all the peace and privacy a tenant could want.
For rental enquiries, please contact our XChindarsi partner Theo Smyrniotis for more details.
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This project was commissioned by a private family client with unique requirements. A father-daughter duo, they wanted to redevelop their large Mount Hawthorn property into two new lots, each with its own brief.
The lot was appropriately zoned so we assisted the family in getting the subdivision approved. The two new lots would each contain a two-storey townhouse, one as an investment property for the father Winston, and the other to be owner-occupied by his daughter Kate. We designed both townhouses to complement each other in style and appearance, but left enough flexibility to allow each to be customised. Kate’s is the smaller home, with a much tighter budget, and we worked closely with her to tailor the design to her requirements. We kept her master bedroom at the rear, away from the busy street, and included a small balcony overlooking the garden. The courtyard and most of the glazing in the home face north to make the most of the winter sun, and the east-west aspects are minimised to protect the home from the summer heat. She wanted a connection with the neighbourhood as well as an outdoor entertaining area, so we converted the top of the carport into an open roof terrace. Kate also chose a slightly different colour scheme of warmer timber tones, which differentiates the homes from the street.
Winston’s investment townhouse is slightly larger, with more bedrooms and different choices in finishes and fittings. Where Kate chose polished concrete floors as a low-cost, low-maintenance option for her home, Winston selected boards and tiles for a more a textured look. We also maintained a spacious feeling within both townhouses with full-height ceilings and central voids, which open up the living spaces.
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XChindarsi have teamed up with Baileys Living to offer a unique, fully customisable range of quality home designs. Our Baileys plans are designed to suit standard housing lots in and around suburban Perth, and each offers a huge range of options and features.
Baileys Living is designed to take the work and the stress out of building. Baileys can assist in locating suitable lots for the owners’ dream home, with a range of plans for different lifestyles: singles, couples and families of all sizes. This also represents a fantastic option for investors seeking a portfolio of well-designed homes for the rental market, as an alternative to apartments or commercial properties. Baileys handle all development and building licence approvals for purchasers, and they’ve brought together a fantastic build team to carry out construction quickly and reliably.
For more information, please contact our XChindarsi partner Baileys Living or visit their website.
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This project is one of the first large lots on Charles St in North Perth to be transformed from traditional single dwellings to bigger multi-residential developments. Our goal with this project is to set a high standard for future developments in the area, and we were very proud when it was awarded ‘Design Excellence’ by the City of Vincent Design Advisory Committee in 2015.
The plan provides for 27 apartments, a mix of one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. Close to the CBD, public transport (including the designated future tram line) and freeway access, as well as North Perth’s café strips and Beatty Park, it is an ideal choice for either investors or owner-occupiers. The aesthetic is based on high-end boutique resort living, with a luxury holiday feel. Situated on a sloping block, it presents as a three-storey building from the street, with underground parking and two storeys set further back in the site. The façade is finely crafted, with dark face brickwork and an articulated metal framework across the balconies. This provides adjustable shade and privacy for each apartment, and the topmost storeys are oriented to capture vistas of the skyline. Generous landscaping in the shared spaces and around the ground-floor units anchors the complex in the leafy North Perth streetscape, and a planned public art feature in the front garden will add significant appeal. The plan also features a shared rooftop barbecue area and swimming pool – a luxury in higher density developments and an iconic part of the WA lifestyle.
Sustainability was one of the key elements we wanted to focus on with this development. Rather than meeting current benchmarks, we wanted to prove that they can be exceeded with careful design and smart use of technology. Current life-cycle assessments indicate that the project will maintain a minimum 50% improvement on these benchmarks in its carbon emissions, and each apartment is rated a minimum 7 stars under the NatHERS. A total of 53kW photovoltaic solar panels will be installed, powering all of the common areas as well as meeting a substantial portion of each apartment’s power requirements.
The project has recently been approved via the DAP process and the site has just been listed for sale by the vendor. The full property listing can be viewed at: 
Please contact Vlado Kukulj at 
for more information or to register your interest.
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As part their brand relaunch, Ultimo Interiors wanted to reinvent the look and feel of their Osborne Park furniture showroom. Alongside a new logo and a contemporary fit-out for the interior, the owners approached us to develop a high-impact new design for the nondescript white exterior; Ultimo are purveyors of high-end European design, and they wanted a facade to match. They also had a strict budget, given the scale of the relaunch and the size of the site itself.
With a showroom full of beautiful things to inspire us, our design inevitably drew on the details and structural properties of fine furniture. Lightweight clip-on space frame elements give striking detail to the main showroom, with an early Modernist look taken from the furniture of the Bauhaus Era. On the other side of the entrance, vertical aluminium tubing gives the loading dock a high-tech industrial feel, giving the impression of a screen or a drawn curtain. The asymmetrical nature and shifting patterns of the facade make it particularly eye-catching from the roadway.
We integrated backlit signage into the new canopy, with the new logo as the defining feature of the facade. The choice of Colorbond flat-rib sheet metal cladding gives the canopy an edgy, modern finish and also helped to keep costs down.
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A new site for the Margaret River-based Providore, this project was situated in the mature vineyards and rolling agricultural land of the Swan Valley. Alongside their main Wilyabrup site, the owners were looking to establish a base closer to the city – one which would attract the thousands of foodies and wine enthusiasts who flock to the Swan Valley each year.
At the heart of this project was the concept of the traditional Australian rural shed, with updated timber and stone elements for a more elegant aesthetic. The contemporary verandah is wide and inviting, and the long hall and sturdy WA timber benches inside offer the promise of a feast of delicious local produce. Inside, the use of stone, steel and wood maintains the rural feeling which visitors love about the Valley, while polished finishes and contemporary lighting choices add a level of freshness and sophistication.
Visual appeal from the roadway was also extremely important, given Providore’s drop-in tourist market. Rough sawn Jarrah cladding provides texture and warmth to the exterior surfaces, with signage and branding elements on prominent display without dominating the facade. We also kept the gardens simple and unobtrusive, with landscaped lawn areas for visitors to stroll on and low, manicured hedging.
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This wine and olive tasting centre is nestled in the green bushland of beautiful Wilyabrup, in the heartland of the Margaret River region. The property had limited infrastructure already in place, including an existing project home, and the goal was to create a welcoming, drop-in style tourist centre which would showcase the best of the region’s produce.
With so much competition in the area already, visibility from the roadway was a commercial necessity for the project. We built two long, punctuated rammed earth walls – totalling 85 metres in the length – to flank the newly planted vines, leading up to a small olive grove at the main entry. Against the backdrop of this impressive facade, a bold white sign installation gives the company’s branding pride of place. The walls also serve to screen off the existing house as well as the utilitarian corrugated metal and plywood ‘shed’ buildings, which are attached from behind.
The rows of planting are a prominent feature of the Providore centre, and they also provided the inspiration for the structure itself. The varied widths of the openings in the verandah spaces reflect the staccato pattern of the vines, and the rustic geometry of the plots is an integral part of the outlook from the tasting area. In counterpoint, the rear courtyard frames a view of the remnant Jarrah-Marri bushland which so defines the region.
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The Margaret River Chocolate Company approached us with a challenge common to all successful businesses at one point or another – their business was growing faster than their resources could cope with. They needed to roughly double the size of the existing premises – one of the region’s most popular tourist destinations – within a limited budget, and do it all while still remaining open for business. Given that the site is itself such a huge part of the experience of the company, it was also important for us to make sure that the new design was true to the brand in every way.
With such an iconic company and their universally adored product, there was only one choice for the new look of the site. We adapted and extended the original buildings, but gave them a new facade made of plywood, which transforms them into a giant block of chocolate. The warm tones of the wood are naturally reminiscent of cocoa and chocolate, and we introduced bold red and black colouring to add vibrancy, texture and a sense of welcome to the facade. Our approach was based on the traditional rural shed, with corrugated Zincalume cladding elements to offset the plywood. This relatively simple construction style also helped us to keep costs down for the owners, and allowed them to stay open while we worked.
The beautiful Wilyabrup location also called for a range of new sustainability features. We incorporated a new rainwater collection system, including substantial tank storage, and installed waterless urinals. We also ensured that the interior finishes, like the polished concrete flooring, were hardy and low-maintenance to manage the ever-increasing influx of hungry visitors.
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ICM Group is owned by the Bertucci family, whose beautiful South Perth house we designed. They loved the contemporary look and feel of their home and approached us to design the new offices and workshop for their family business in Canning Vale as well.
The palette of robust industrial materials was an easy and early choice. We designed a ‘machine’ of a building, encased by the bull-nose form of the roof much the way a car’s engine is contained within its body. The elegant glass and steel facade is the nerve centre of the plan, set at a welcoming angle for visitors and opening into a brightly lit foyer of timber, steel and stone. The ICM Group logo and company colours are integrated large-scale into the facade for maximum visibility in the industrial surroundings. Within, the offices are compartmentalised, with a central open plan space. Personnel are not shut away from each other, however; windows and low partitioning allow for easy communication and collaboration between offices.
The warehouse part of the plan contains the ‘working parts’ of the machine: the equipment and infrastructure of the electrical engineering business. The highly technical fit-out is multi-level and is matched in proportions by the pitch of the roof; at the higher end sit the gantry crane and heavy machinery, and at the lower end the smaller manual processes and storage. We also had the significant advantage of the client’s own electrical engineering team on this project. They fully integrated the latest C-BUS, building management and security technology throughout the site. The building also runs at peak energy efficiency with the use of room sensors, which automatically modulate lighting and mechanical controls as required.
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Connections Nightclub is an institution in Perth and, like all timeless icons, it has reinvented itself several times over the years. A previous extension we’d done to the existing balcony proved extremely popular, and the owners were looking for a way to create more outside space. Alongside the stunning city views, it would also offer an open-air place for people to smoke – a necessity in Perth clubs with the introduction of new smoking regulations.
We were aware of a disused roof space behind the club’s back-of-house offices, and developed a design around transforming it into a sizeable roof terrace. The concept was to create a simple, welcoming open-air space with a relaxed atmosphere, in keeping with the club’s loyal clientele. We started with a sturdy concrete platform supported by steel columns, engineered to support loads many times the capacity of the space. The resulting terrace has a tucked-away, intimate feel thanks to the surrounding buildings and old brick surfaces, which we emulated with new walls in recycled brick and contrasting grey concrete block.
Timber decking and coloured party lights added the finishing touches to the casual backyard atmosphere the owners were looking for. With its back to the busy club and its face to the sky, the new rooftop terrace has proved a huge success – and boasts possibly the best city skyline views of any club in Perth.
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