Issue 95

Issue 95 comes out 4 January Order on its own or as part of a subscription.

In this issue, our annual kitchen feature, we look at five kitchens that offer unique ideas for design, energy, material selection and waste.

Beyond the kitchen feature, four houses tackle different challenges, from bushfire threats and regenerative land management to luxury without sustainability compromise and a beautiful example of architecture for aging in place.

Our gardens unite in their informality, one an experimentation in engaging community through a kind of wild beauty, spilling onto the pathway and demanding attention. We follow the journey of 13 mates in establishing a retreat in the northern NSW hinterland and the efforts of a designer and maker to build a collection of chairs that reignite a lost artform.

Our Upfront and Upfront Garden pages are full of creative energy, using materials that are considered and experimental. It’s design that makes you think, feel and enjoy.

But up first, we profile Jeremy Lee from Mullumbimby studio JD. Lee Furniture.

Then, our kitchen feature, where the heart of the home is now fully embracing its role as an engine room of a house’s green credentials. Featuring kitchens by Office MI-JI, plain architecture, Zuzana & Nicholas, MRTN Architects, and SONELO.

Then, our first house feature; Passive House principles and BAL-FZ requirements work in tandem in this Blue Mountains house by Anderson Architecture, creating a small, sustainable, bushfire-resilient home.

Next up, perched within the picturesque Currumbin Valley, Kingfisher House serves as a shining example of what it takes to build a sustainable luxury home within a suburban context. Architecture by PTMA Architecture.

For our third house feature; a Bannockburn groundskeeper ’s cottage – of sorts – on the regenerating farm of two design educators offers refuge, connection and clear views: to vulnerable ecologies, architecture’s role in colonial dispossession and possible futures seeded by diverse communities’ custodianship. Architecture by Peter Brew and Simone Koch.

And for our final house feature; removing trip hazards was just the tip of the iceberg when considering the design for this this deeply modest age-in-place home in a flame zone, in Blackheath, New South Wales. With architecture by Bobbie Bayley and Owen Kelly from Dogspike Design & Architecture (formerly The Grand Section).

Our first garden feature; an experimental garden in Frankston, Heartland—the wild and beautiful garden of one of our most passionate and exciting plant practitioners here in Australia, Jac Semmler from plant practice Super Bloom.

In our second garden, landscape architect Emily Simpson transforms a formal, traditional garden into a more natural, textured landscape, providing a variety of spaces for its owners to enjoy. Landscape architecture by Emily Simpson Landscape Architecture, and architecture by Welsh + Major.

And finally for our travel feature; while looking out across the Pacific for its fabulous inspiration, Byron’s newest eco-lodge—Sun Ranch—stays very close to home.

And of course, our regular segments Upfront and Upfront Garden share a curated spread of projects, products or creations that we love. Plus, explore this issue’s Permaculture Tips, and the Brion-Vega tomb (1968–1978, San Vito d’Altivole, Italy) by Carlo Scarpa in What I Like About You, brought to us by Drew Carling (Director of Maddison Architects).

Issue 95 comes out 4 January Order on its own or as part of a subscription.