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e’re always looking for that element that will fuck things up,” says
David Flack of design firm Flack Studio. “It’s very important for
our spaces to feel layered and non-prescriptive.” Flack teamed up
with NTF Architecture to create Emplacement, a five-bedroom,
five-bathroom house overlooking Melbourne’s Como Park that
defies expectation from its very outset, its diminutive proportions
as viewed from the street belying the expansive 600-square-
Wmetre, three-floored interior within.
The house, designed for a young couple and their four children, took six years to manifest, thanks
mostly not to its extravagance, but instead to its refinement. Two materials dominate the
architecture: concrete — “it captures the grey of Melbourne,” says architect George Fortey — and
walnut veneer. “The concrete is about permanence,” he says, “and for the clients, putting down their
roots in a place that literally will become a base camp as they grow old and as the kids grow up;
somewhere where they can always return to.”
The concrete element took 18 months to achieve. “It’s an incredibly slow, technical process,”
continues Fortey. “Forty-six different walls all needed to be poured one after the other. We created
a negative of the house in timber formwork, then poured the concrete in — literally viewing the
house as a photographic negative, and viewing it all from the inside out, like a bronze mould.”
The obvious way to decorate such a monolithic structure would be modernist minimal: glossed-up
chrome and smooth black leather, monochromatic with a masculine bent. But this house was never
going in that direction; it was always intended as a family home. Enter Flack, who for the final
18 months of the project took to decorating it with family at the centre of his mind. “A lot of what
the clients referenced was the fact that growing up they didn’t necessarily have access to art,” he
says. “They saw the benefit of their own kids growing up in a home that honoured and respected
that process of learning about art and culture.”
The children were also given a voice. “It wasn’t just about creating an art collection for one
individual,” Flack adds. “We had six people we were sitting down with and getting a really clear
understanding of how they saw the world and how we could represent that back through art.”
Each child chose a work for their bedroom — “one of the boys chose a Sydney Ball and one of the
girls a Jahnne Pasco-White”. Flack talks of how sport is encouraged in kids in Australia, but
adventures in art are not. Emplacement rejects this entirely: the rumpus is part Graceland Jungle
Room, part boutique art gallery.
The list of artists — the house features more than 65 pieces of largely Australian art — is
increasingly more impressive at every turn. It’s not a stretch to describe the entire house as a gallery
as well as a home, with the owners regularly giving tours to friends. The main bedroom sees a dark
and edgy Bill Henson face off against two Karen Blacks — breathlessly gestural and vividly
colourful against the exposed in-situ concrete wall. The living area is positively kaleidoscopic in
both its art and design collection — an Alex Seton marble sculpture at one end, a huge Adam Lee
landscape behind the olive green Edra sofa and spotted 1975 Tucroma lounge chairs by Guido
Faleschini for Mariani. Over in the corner, a provocative untitled piece by emerging artist Lucina
Lane peeks out. “It’s about sustainability,” says Flack. “The amount of wood that it takes to frame a
piece of artwork, that’s what that work actually is. It puts the mirror up to ourselves.” Here, in this
concrete-clad monolithic dwelling, is where Aussie irreverence is captured. “The house is very
Australian in its curation of art and furniture and general styling,” he says. “It’s flamboyant and
contradictory, and it doesn’t take itself seriously — it has the ability to have a laugh.”
One particular corner is a fan favourite of both Fortey and Flack. “There is a little reading nook
where you get the view to the west — you can see down to the pool, you can see the living and dining
area, and down to the rumpus area below. It encapsulates what the house is all about,” says Fortey.
At its heart is a blocky chair by Pierre Augustin Rose. “The New Bauhaus armchair is a piece of art
in itself,” says Flack. “Sitting there, surrounded by the Reko Rennies, is a really beautiful, small
little moment, and not an obvious one.”
“We don’t believe in heroes: a hero kitchen or powder room,” he continues. “We believe the entire
house has to hold hands together and take you on that journey.” In this vein, the kitchen is simplicity
itself in walnut veneer and black porcelain, the cool grey tundra marble splashback echoing that of
the floor — elements that allow the art and design objects to do the talking. “This house has heart,
expressing a passion for knowledge and creativity within its strong structure,” says Flack. “The
clients wanted to create something that is a place of protection for their family, but within that
protection is that bursting level of knowledge and enthusiasm and curiosity, and a space that allows
the next generation to be anything they want to be. Art allows that conversation to happen.”
ntfarchitecture.com.au flackstudio.com.au

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