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Some renovations find their inspiration through a broad, rolling process of discovery, but for one Melbourne kitchen, interior designer Megan Norgate says the design was clear from the moment she received the address. Her clients had bought an apartment in a celebrated Art Deco apartment building by architect Arthur Plaisted. “The architecture had beautiful proportions and a lot of lovely features, including very careful placement of windows for light and views structured around internal courtyards,” says Norgate, who immediately pictured how the Art Deco style could be translated into a contemporary setting. Think clean 1930s lines, simple ornamentation, and lots of soft curves.
As the name of her firm, Brave New Eco, suggests, Norgate and her team have a focus on sustainable design, but they have a unique spin on sustainability-minded design: A permaculture philosophy. If you’ve heard of permaculture, you might think of it as a style of gardening, but Norgate explains, “It’s really a design framework you can apply on any scale to any type of design problem.” Permaculture thinking aims for the minimum change for maximum benefit. “Any intervention you do in a building has a negative environmental impact: You’re always using some resources,” says Norgate. “We’re trying to make sure that we’re not just coming in and ripping everything out and doing everything new just for the sake of it.”
Using that minimum change philosophy, Brave New Eco worked entirely within the existing layout of two adjoining spaces. “The internal walls were structural, double brick, so to take any of those out or change the openings would’ve required quite a lot of engineering,” Norgate notes. One of Brave New Eco’s chief goals in reconfiguring the space was to move the refrigerator out of the room that connects to the exterior to let in more light. This maneuver created a fridge-cooking-wet zone on one side and a dining room (with hidden laundry) on the other. The plumbing also stayed in relatively the same spots. However, all new cabinetry and appliances were in order.
Brave New Eco is known for highly-saturated interiors, and for this project, they drew on the colors found in the architecture of the building. To complement the checkerboard tiles, which Norgate and her client determined they would keep, they looked to the architecture for color cues. Norgate explains, “We looked at the common areas, the stairwells’ beautiful tessellated tiles, lighting, the steelwork ornamentation, and the balustrades, and we pulled all our colors out from those areas.” Norgate paired a deep, muted maroon and a clotted cream off-white with a stained Australian hardwood for warmth.
Brave New Eco’s permaculture philosophy also impacted the materials and products they chose. Norgate says they always tries to source things locally from Australia because the carbon footprint of shipping everything is so significant. If they can’t find it locally, they look regionally to Japan or New Zealand (there are, of course, some exceptions). They simultaneously look for recycled content and/or organic materials that can be recycled at the end of life. In addition to those eco-bonafides, everything must also be beautiful of course.
The final kitchen feels both totally of-the-moment and right at home in its Art Deco enclosure. It’s so stylish that you’d never guess they were driven primarily by ecological philosophy, and that’s exactly what Norgate hopes to achieve: A beautiful, functional space that just happens to be wildly sustainable.
Max Out Your Storage Wall
Part of the motivation for the full wall of cabinetry was to provide overflow storage from the main kitchen area. The custom shelves and cabinetry have a built-in table that can be folded down and out of the way when not in use.
Stick to a Simple Palette
Two-tone cabinetry cleverly conceals the integrated appliances streamlining the look of the space. The upper cabinets, countertop, backsplash tiles, and walls are all shades of off-white, further reducing the visual clutter. To accommodate the soft plaster reveals around the original windows, Brave New Eco selected a small Japanese mosaic tile that could go around the corners. Brave New Eco prefers live brass for faucets because they are not finished with toxic finishes and will patina gracefully over time.
Tuck Appliances Out of Sight
Brave New Eco designed a deep appliance nook next to the refrigerator, so that small appliances like coffee maker and toaster don’t clutter up the countertops near the windows.
Play Kitchen Tetris Like a Pro
Norgate describes figuring out the appliance configuration for the small u-shaped cooking area to a game of Tetris, but she managed to fit in a cooktop, oven, sink, dishwasher, and refrigerator. Previously, the refrigerator blocked the window in the dining area, so she was determined to fit it into the main part of the kitchen. There was only one integrated model on the market (a Fisher and Paykel) that was narrow enough to fit the space.
Hide the Laundry Behind Cabinet Doors
The washer-dryer hides behind a cabinet panel, so you’re not looking right at the laundry when you sit in the dining area. Brave New Eco designed a narrow cabinet to hold detergents and other supplies so it fills the remaining wall space.