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The terrazzo trend shows no sign of slowing down, with the decorative speckled material cropping up in residential projects as well as in restaurants and workspaces. For this lookbook, we’ve rounded up ten playful and practical terrazzo kitchens. More
Architect Murray Barker and artist Esther Stewart worked together to retrofit this two-bedroom 1960s apartment in Melbourne’s Brunswick neighbourhood using colours and materials that pay homage to the original mid-century interior.When the current owners bought the walk-up apartment, it had been empty for 20 years and had its original decor including linoleum and carpet floors and salmon pink walls. The owners wanted to retain its character while updating the living spaces to suit modern life.
Built in 1961, the 65-square-metre apartment is split into two zones with a living space and kitchen at the front on either side of the entrance and two bedrooms on either side of a bathroom at the rear.
A skylight lets light into the kitchen
“The apartment’s layout was typical of many apartments of this typology, with a clear division between living and private spaces and with frontage on two sides,” Barker told Dezeen.
“We wanted to retain room divisions, but at the same time improve connections, extend sightlines and bring more natural light into the kitchen.”
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The apartment’s original large windows provided ample natural light and effective cross ventilation. The owners felt that the existing kitchen, however, felt disconnected from the living room as the space was too confined to accommodate a dining table and lacked adequate natural light.
To remedy this, Barker and Stewart reconfigured the plan to improve the connection between the living room and the kitchen.
The Pistacho-coloured kitchen has a terrazzo floor
The dividing walls between the two rooms were partially demolished and joinery elements were inserted to reorder circulation paths between the home’s central entrance, the reoriented kitchen and the living room.
“We expanded the use of integrated joinery, considered existing proportions and details, and the use of high quality, robust but interesting materials,” said Murray.
The interior of the cabinets is a rich terracotta colour
The new kitchen layout has an L-shaped plan that is open to the living area and anchored by a custom-made steel frame table with a Rosa Alicante marble top and fixed banquette seating.
Visible from the living room, a long kitchen countertop made from the same red marble as the table completes the L-shaped kitchen plan and incorporates a stove, oven and sink.
Red marble was used across the work- and tabletops
A skylight above the kitchen table lets sunlight into the space through thick glass roof tiles. The ceiling is insulated and the roof window is double-glazed to minimise additional heat gain and to retain winter warmth.
Murray and Stewart selected the pistachio green colour for the joinery in a nod to the original 1960s-era kitchen that it replaced. Details include visible framing around doors and drawers and custom finger pulls. Sliding-pocket doors reveal a hidden appliance area in the pantry to hold a toaster, kettle and coffee machine.
Barker and Stewart retained the apartment’s original 1960s bathroom
The apartment’s bathroom is the 1960s original and features speckled flooring, dusty pink tiles and baby blue sanitaryware.
“Each apartment in the block has a unique toilet, bath and sink set in contrasting colour palettes, in combination with unique terrazzo flooring in the bathroom,” Murray explained. “The interior materiality was specific and robust but enthusiastic and this was something we wished to explore and elaborate upon.”
The terrazzo floor tiles that are used across the rest of the apartment were salvaged excess stock from a larger project and were chosen to complement the original floors.
The apartment is housed in a typical red brick complex
“These buildings are visually robust, but there is beauty in the material nuance of the brown brick and subtle ornamentation through the considered design of ordinary things,” he continued. “The original interior aesthetic was far from white walls and plain tiles.”
Last year, London studio Archmongers renovated a duplex mid-century flat in one of the city’s most well-known housing estates, using shades of red, yellow and blue to complement the modernist material palette. Meanwhile in Rome, Italian architecture office La Macchina Studio renovated a 1950s apartment, revealing original terrazzo floors and adding bold colours.
Photography is by Benjamin Hosking.
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Design office Roar Studio combined industrial materials such as concrete and stainless steel with decorative terrazzo and broken ceramic tiles for Drop Coffee, a cafe in Dubai’s Dar Al Wasl Mall.The Dubai-based studio was asked to design an interior that would suit the flow of visitors to the cafe, who enter the space from two different entrances – one connected to the outdoors and one to the mall.
The bar area is framed by a wooden structure
It chose to keep the design simple by focusing on the materials used and framed the bar area of the cafe in pale wood and LED lights to create an eye-catching centrepiece.
“This is the second outlet for this homegrown Emirati brand,” Roar Studio founder Pallavi Dean told Dezeen.
“Their main drive was to achieve a minimal space where the coffee bar is a central feature and creates a theatrical moment – the making of the coffee is at the front and centre stage.”
A broken-tile mosaic decorates the main wall
The ceiling of the cafe is concrete and the studio also painted the walls with a concrete paint finish, which is complemented by a terrazzo-effect tiled stone floor in grey and white hues.
Its colours and shapes are picked up on the main wall, which was decorated with a mosaic of broken ceramic tiles that form an abstract pattern similar to the floor.
“We sourced basic white tiles from Rakceramics – a local manufacturer – which were then broken on-site to compose a patterned wall,” Dean explained.
“We aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel by using broken tiles – our idea was to form a counterpoint to the terrazzo effect porcelain flooring as though the chips of the broken tiles were used in the flooring.”
Stainless steel was used for the countertops
A large counter in pale wood is connected to the ceiling by beams in the same material, framing the bar area of the store. The counter is covered in stainless steel, which was chosen for both practical and aesthetic reasons.
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“The coffee bar has a stainless steel countertop which is extremely sturdy and hygienic but also allows the light to bounce through the space because of its reflectivity,” Dean said.
Orange clamp-style tables for a quick coffee break
Around the base of the bar, lighted skirting made out of glass blocks give the impression that it is floating above the ground. By the side of the bar, the enclosed kitchen area features a wall made from matching glass blocks, enabling visitors to see the silhouettes of Drop Coffee’s staff while they work.
The studio also chose to work with certain materials to help create a less noisy atmosphere for the visitors.
“The ceiling is acoustic foam sprayed, an effect that adds to the industrial aesthetic and helps muffle the noise in the open-plan space – not to mention the noise generated by the coffee machines,” Dean explained.
Grey hues and pale wood decorate the space
Drop Coffee already has one cafe in Dubai and the plan is for each of the branches to be associated with a different colour, with burnt orange used for Roar Studios’ design.
The colour has been dotted throughout the space and was used for seating as well as on clamp-style tables set along one wall for customers who want to have a quick coffee standing up.
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Roar Studio was founded in 2013 as Pallavi Dean Interiors by Dean, who was a Dezeen Awards 2020 judge, and rebranded as Roar Studio in 2018. It has previously designed a high-tech learning space for children in Dubai and issued a white paper about the ways in which Covid-19 will impact the design of schools and colleges.
Photography is by Oculis Project.
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London studio Bureau de Change has used different varieties of terrazzo to create a richly textured interior for a remodelled family home.Frame House is a Victorian terraced home in south London, renovated and extended by Bureau de Change for a property developer and her family.
The ground floor of Frame House is split over three levels
The project involved adding a rear extension, converting the loft and completing revamping the interior. But most importantly, the client wanted to give the home a distinct character and coherency throughout.
The architecture studio achieved this with a carefully planned colour and material strategy, and through playful use of geometry.
The lounge occupies the extended rear of the house
“The brief was to create a coherent journey through all spaces and floors,” explained architect Billy Mavropoulos, who co-founded Bureau de Change with partner Katerina Dionysopoulou.
“We needed a holistic design, looking at everything from the architecture of the extension, to the layouts and the way the spaces are used, down to the joinery handles and details,” he told Dezeen.
“The client was after a rich palette of finishes and colours, but one that would feel consistently part of the same narrative.”
Different varieties of terrazzo were chosen for different areas
As is common with Victorian terraces, Frame House has a split-level layout that helps to make the floor plan more efficient.
In the new layout, the ground floor is divided over three levels, comprising the kitchen, dining space and lounge. The two split-level upper storeys contain three en-suite bedrooms, a separate bathroom and a study room.
Terrazzo was the material that Mavropoulos and Dionysopoulou chose to unite the various spaces. It is a material the pair are familiar with, having previously used it in another residential project, Folds House.
Different shades of taupe feature on each of the ground floor levels
Here, they decided to work with different varieties of terrazzo to give each space its own character, while subtly tying them all together.
On the ground floor the flooring is a taupe terrazzo in three slightly different shades – one for each level. This creates a gentle transition from light to dark, starting with the kitchen at the front of the house and ending with the lounge at the rear.
A green marble terrazzo was chosen for the staircase handrail
“We chose them very carefully so that they are all of the same family but vary in darkness/density,” said Mavropoulos.
“The colour difference is very subtle as we did not want the floor to take over. But when you look closely you notice the difference.”
Other details have been picked out contrasting terrazzo varieties: a kitchen island features shades of red and black, the staircase handrails are a green marble terrazzo, and each bathroom has its own different shade.
The master bedroom on the first floor features an en-suite with grey terrazzo
The geometries of the design are based around the rear extension, which gives the occupants a large living space.
Keen to avoid the 45-degree angled roof and frameless glass typical of infill extensions, the architects opted for a more cuboidal approach. Steel frames create staggered glass boxes, which Mavropoulos and Dionysopoulou liken to museum display cases.
The new loft bedroom features an en-suite with pale terrazzo and pink walls
“When we looked at the cascading volumes in plan and section, we felt there was an element of fragility to them, almost like a jewel stone, so we decided to make them out of glass to enhance that feel,” said Mavropoulos.
“These distinctly cubist glass volumes are articulated through their bold steel-frame construction, expressing each edge in a manner that creates shifting patterns of light and space, and a paradoxical sense of both levity and solidity,” added Dionysopoulou.
The terrazzo also extends into the garden, forming cascading planters
These cascading box forms are referenced in other places, such as the proportions of the split floor levels, or the planting boxes in the garden. There’s also a glass display case in the dining area.
Other details contribute to the personality of these spaces. The lounge room brings together a floral-patterned rug and a large cactus plant, while the dining space features a wall of shelving filled with various objects and books.
The architects hope the result is one of “theatre and tactility”.
Photography is by Gilbert McCarragher.
Project credits
Architect: Bureau de ChangeInteriors: Bureau de ChangeEngineer: SymmetrysM&E: MWLContractor: Argyll LondonLandscape: Tulip Landscapes
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Italian architecture office La Macchina Studio has renovated a 1950s apartment in Rome, revealing original terrazzo floors and adding bold colours.Set in the Italian capital’s Appio Latino quarter, the mid-century one-bedroom apartment already had Venetian stone floors.
The original terrazzo floors have been restored
La Macchina Studio uncovered them and enlisted local craftsmen to restore the terrazzo, while the apartment was transformed into a “surreal set where reality and fiction coexist in a quasi-theatrical scene”.
“With Retroscena, we wanted to enhance the irreverent and surreal nature of the architectural story,” said studio founders Gianni Puri and Enrica Siracusa.
“It is inextricably linked to its photographic alter-ego by playing with colour contrasts, graphic motifs and unexpected incursions.”
Pops of primary colour stand out against white walls
Walls and certain elements have been painted bright white, to create a neutral backdrop for the graphic pops of colour.
An arched doorway and a low, midcentury-style cabinet in the living area are painted a matching bright blue.
A blue-painted wooden doorway leads to the bedroom
A pair of zesty lemon-yellow fabric curtains can be pulled across to separate the living area from the kitchen diner and screen off the door to the balcony.
The arching doorway juts out almost a metre from the wall, screening the kitchen furniture from the view of the hallway. The blue-lacquered wood marks the entrance to the bedroom.
Yellow curtains can screen the living room off
A red wall-hanging placed above the sofa marks another splash of primary colour.
Another doorway set flush to the wall opens to reveal the two-room bathroom. In the first room, a bath and shower are all surrounded by square ceramic white tiles, set in dark grouting to create a graphic check mosaic.
White square tiles form a check mosaic in the bathroom
A pointy arched doorway leads to the second half of the bathroom, where a toilet and a bidet face each other across a sink, which is framed by the arch.
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Peacock-blue enamelled walls and a dimmable ring light mirror above the sink add to the theatrical styling of the bathroom.
An arched doorway frames the sink
In the bedroom, the floor has a ruddy hue, the result of a brick-red micro cement treatment applied by La Macchina Studio. A low-hanging orb-style pendant light and peach velvet curtains create a softer aesthetic.
Pinkish cement flooring also differentiates the entryway. Built-in white wardrobes in the hallway conceal a hidden room that is used as a study.
The bedroom has a micro cement floor
La Macchina Studio was founded by Puri and Siracusa in 2013 and is based in Rome.
More exciting Roman apartment renovations include a flat with terracotta-coloured walls and an apartment with a reading den visible through a porthole-style cutout.
Photography is by Paolo Fusco.
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Geometric forms and graphic terrazzo surfaces feature in this duplex apartment in Ho Chi Minh City that has been updated by Whale Design Lab. Locally based studio Whale Design Lab revamped the formerly lacklustre interiors of the Mài Apartment to reflect the client’s penchant for modernist architecture. A particular point of reference was the work
The post Whale Design Lab references Louis Kahn for makeover of Mài Apartment in Vietnam appeared first on Dezeen. More
Amsterdam-based eyewear company Ace & Tate’s shop in Antwerp has interiors clad with terrazzo made with colourful chips of recycled plastic sourced locally by Dutch startup Plasticiet. Ace & Tate collaborated with sustainable materials company Plasticiet for the shop in Belgium as part of their push to become more sustainable. The brand has pledged to […] More
From residential interiors to hotels and restaurants, terrazzo has been widely used by architects and designers in recent years. Our updated terrazzo Pinterest board includes the latest projects published on Dezeen that feature the design. Marble and terrazzo tiles line the entrance hall floor in this renovated 1970s house Among the most recent projects on […] More
