A boldly designed Newstead home was shortlisted for a national architecture award.
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The home was named in the top 10 residences for Single Residential Exterior in the national Dulux Colour Awards, held in May.
Competition was high with a record-breaking 305 entries submitted across the award’s nine categories.
Honed Architecture and Design owner-architect Michael Bernacki worked with clients Anna and David Martin to design a family home which embodied a stealth, artistic and monolithic expression of architecture in suburbia.
Stacked recycled-bricks were used for the exterior of the Ivy Lane residence, influenced by 1960 Californian architecture.
Two standout features of the home were the use of the colour black and the windowless frontage.
“They (Anna and David) love their privacy, so that is why we took away all the windows from the front of the house and orientated it to the north,” Mr Bernacki said.
“Anna and David are very artistic … so they wanted a house that was individual.”
The use of the colour black was an uncommon yet striking feature of the home.
“Black was selected as it is a colour of power, a colour of elegance,” Mr Bernacki said.
“We believe through the creative and innovative use of ‘black’ we have enhanced the streetscape quality as well as the defining private spaces throughout the dwelling.”
Only 124 of the award’s entries were shortlisted, pitting Mr Bernacki’s design against some major mainland architecture firms.
“To be shortlisted is a massive honour,” Mr Bernacki said.
“The who’s who of national architecture and interior design contest the highly decorated award categories.”
The awards were held at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne on May 10, giving Mr Bernacki the chance to rub shoulders with the “a-listers of architecture”.
Mr Bernacki’s peers said the design was “bold, harsh, but it works”.
“This residence was Launceston’s first ‘black’ house and it has since its completion, it has inspired other black houses throughout the city,” he said.
The home was sold in December last year.
Melbourne firm AdeB Architects won the Single Residential Exterior award for 2018.