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25/11/2024

// Nice to see we made the “Best cafe/bar/restaurant interiors” list in Newcastle + Lake Macquarie for our Small Bar design, in inner-city Newcastle.
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Hospitality design is one of the most challenging typologies and we are thrilled to be recognised amongst talented peers and tough competition. 🍷✨

A beautiful interior when eating out can definitely enhance the experience. Here are the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie restaurants, bars and cafes with the best interiors.

17/11/2024

// DA APPROVED on the historic Regent Theatre site //

As a consequence of the catastrophic Northern Rivers floods of 2022 and thanks to a Create NSW - Community Infrastructure Arts Grant the theatre will soon have new universal access ramps constructed at the main entry, as well as an external disabled access lift to the rear, accessed via M | Arts.

This new external lift will improve accessibility to the Gallery level of M | Arts as well as add much-needed disabled access to the upper floors of the Regent Cinema. It will be clad in modern corten steel, to contrast and offset the beautiful original Art Deco brick of the theatre.

Since our first DA was lodged on the site in 2021 The Regent has undergone a huge transformation - from derelict 1980’s supermarket on the ground floor of the theatre with empty tenancies, to a beautifully refurbished space right in the heart of Murwillumbah CBD along with flourishing boutique tenants.

We are so pleased to have been a part of bringing this historic Art Deco building slowly back to life thanks to the vision of the owners, combined with the fabulous M | Arts team. It is a true community asset and will remain so for a long time to come. We can’t wait to see what the next chapter will hold for the town.

.arts.precinct

08/03/2024

// On International Women’s Day (but not because it’s IWD) we are extremely proud to introduce our superstar Architect - Afifah 💥
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Afifah has been an integral part of our team for well over 12 months now, and she has been instrumental in getting several complex developments approved through Council. ⚡️
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Afifah is a NSW Registered Architect and has worked for several large award-winning firms in Australia, and brings over 10 years of commercial and residential experience to our practice. She is currently leading the team on the architecture & interiors for a Small Bar project in Newcastle, and also works across our many other projects including heritage and residential work - bringing her creativity and attention to detail to each and every project.
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Afifah is also a talented interior designer, and has brought a unique flair to our many interiors projects. A gardener and a seamstress in her spare time, there is nothing this woman can’t turn into a thing of beauty.
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We are very fortunate to have Afifah on our team. In this traditionally male dominated industry, we celebrate all women in architectural practice today and we especially celebrate this incredible woman and all-round exceptional human. 👊⚡️💥

06/03/2024

// STUDIO NAYANA //

We love big projects but we really love small projects. Here is a custom container design & fitout we created within the M|Arts Precinct for the fabulous artist & illustrator, Nayana ✨

13/08/2023

// Smallest Works //
The Lundberg Gallery housed in an industrial estate in the Northern Rivers, NSW must be the smallest project we have been engaged to design, yet entirely proves the quote by Yoshio Taniguchi:
“Architecture is basically a container of something. I hope they will enjoy not so much the teacup, but the tea….”
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It was such a pleasure helping our client and gallery curator Clive bring this fabulous new gallery to life, and watching the impact a few white plasterboard walls can make in your sensory experience of the world.
What is art, if it cannot be pondered, enjoyed, a divider, despised, above all tap into what makes us human…..
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Again this project was created during the pandemic and then the first attempt at opening wiped out by the catastrophic Northern Rivers floods of 2022.
But despite these hurdles opened their doors to an incredibly successful opening show “Unfold”, and I was honoured to open the exhibition and gallery along with the director of the Tweed Regional Museum, Susi Muddiman OAM.
Congratulations to owners Amanda and Clive on having the vision to create a now indispensable asset to the Northern NSW art scene.
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c2022, South Murwillumbah

20/06/2022

This is a truly well put together resource. All of the YourHome guides are extremely useful, have a read….

Read online at YourHome.gov.au

23/05/2022

// Palm Beach House, Gold Coast - schematic design.
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Planar and sculptural form studies, observing the cast of light and shadows throughout the day.
This is a tricky western-facing block located on a busy road. We wanted to provide a way to soften the harsh afternoon light as well as provide acoustic screening for the upper floor.
Beyond the movable batten screens creating movement and interest is a deep balcony and recessed private bedrooms.
The client has requested exposed concrete floor slabs, walls and ceilings so we will balance this out and contrast it with natural timber joinery, terracotta tiling and indoor planting zones.
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22/05/2022

// Where would we be without light, and conversely, without shadow?
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Observing day by day, season by season… to experience your built environment becomes a joy. Stop, contemplate, listen and feel….. where is your favourite place to sit in the middle of winter to capture the fleeting rays of sunlight?
Where do you go to escape the harsh afternoon heat on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the middle of summer? These moments define our architectural experience, but also enrich our personal experience of our environment, of life, of living. //

24/04/2022

// We are excited that our mixed-use commercial and residential development has finally gone into Council for DA.
This development will greatly enhance the existing streetscape and village atmosphere of Beaumont Street in Hamilton, Newcastle. ⚡️⚡️

29/05/2021

// We talk a lot about ‘place-making’ as architects. But what makes a place?
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“The more living patterns there are in a place - a room, a building, or a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name...” ~ Christopher Alexander - A Pattern Language
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// Regional towns in Australia contain an incredible amount of layers which take time to understand and peel back. Just looking at the present grid of a city or town will never reveal the joys and hardship the inhabitants have lived and breathed; the thousands of footsteps tred, the lives lost, the changed and changing landscape and ecology. This is what makes the ‘place’ what it is today.
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Murwillumbah is but one example. This was known to the local Bundjalung peoples as “a good place to camp” or “place of many possums”, with observations recorded of semi-permanent camps around 600 people strong only 1km from the present CBD.
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Since invasion originally for the highly prized Red Cedar, this once very densely forested place in the Tweed Valley, in a volcanic caldera and on the bank of the Tweed River, has seen innumerable floods, a main street razed by fire, hopes and dreams built around cedar, then dairy, and then sugar as the rail network grew.
The canefields remain, surrounding the present town as lush green, neatly ordered reminders of the dense, practically impassible rainforest of the past. The crooked Proudfoots Lane - who knew this was once a creek? Layers upon layers of ‘place’ can be discovered about a community that as a whole grew and evolved from experience to experience. Disappointment, pride, love, perseverance, vision and most of all deep connection to the land and the people has seen this town thrive.
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Connecting this thread of history, of paying respect to the custodians of the land as well as understanding the hardships the early settlers experienced in establishing a town and growing it is all part of understanding Place.
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// A Place cannot be created by a Masterplan, but ‘placemaking’ can re-tell the story that made it. ⚡️⚡️

26/11/2020

Excited to be presenting the session on Sustainable Design in next week’s Sustainable Living Home Expo. Get your free tickets at the link below - see you there! 🍃

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