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The design intervention for this 84-square-meter apartment took the radical approach of subtracting a bedroom in order to enhance its living amenities and space, illustrating latent potential of all existing apartment stock. The act of architecture here is recessive and subtle foregrounding the original apartment’s Art Deco features and proportions.
When design interventions are often an act of addition, this project achieves better amenity through the act of subtraction and revival.
The architectural incisions for this project are subtle and measured seeking to foreground the apartment’s Art Deco features. Each layer of this renovation is delicately imbricated with the apartment’s heritage: The eucalypt coloured and modular D-Tiles are in dialogue with the original stained-glass bathroom door. The D-Tiles’ smooth grids and curves define a distinctive, bold vanity and an immersive, ambient bathroom. The joinery gives shape to even more curves to reflect the ceiling’s circular patterns while also strategically extending the apartment’s living and storage spaces. Thickened walls are joinery that resolve the storage issues of the apartment, helping the clients achieve a minimal space for their art. The muted grey-blue kitchen cabinets and speckled Italian terrazzo nod to the building’s foyer and frontage. Luxury finishes and motifs are eschewed in favour of everyday functionality. Robust and timeless materials— including a stainless kitchen bench specially sanded for a softened finish —ensure functionality and sustainability for its current and future residents. Careful attention to small but crucial details—surfaces, handles, lighting, materials, and textures—elevates the everyday rituals for our clients.
In the competitive Sydney real estate market, more bedrooms are considered desirable in a home. Yet, for the inhabitants the desire for a more light-filled and better living spaces the intervention required the radical approach of deleting a bedroom. Layers of additions - walls, joinery and flooring - accumulated over its 100 year life has been cleared to restore the original proportions and an open floor plan. As a result a more harmonious and spacious apartment has been created that carefully connects the kitchen, living and dining and facilitates the seamless integration of daily customs and fills the apartment with light.
The client required better connection between the living spaces, improved amenity, storage and improved daylighting. The resulting project achieves all this through measured and minimal interventions to demonstrate that not all architectural interventions need to be heavy handed.
This project is shortlisted in the Residential Design Category of the Australian Interior Design Awards 2025.
Read the review in Architecture Au: https://architectureau.com/articles/onslow-gardens-apartment-by-youssofzay-hart/
Photography: Hamish McIntosh
Builder: owner builder with Renovate Today appointed as site foreman
Structural consultant: E2 Civil and Structural Design
Acoustic consultant: Renzo Tonin and Associates
Joinery: Das Joinery
Tiling: Mike the tiler