This project is an exploration in the appreciation of living and working with timber. Conceived as both a home for EBBA’s Director, Benni Allan, and a testing ground for design ideas, the apartment renovation became a place to realise concepts that are often compromised during conventional design processes.

Imagined as a live-in showspace, the home is designed to evolve around objects. Collected pieces, works by friends and collaborators, and studio experiments are all displayed in a gallery-like setting. The result is a space that encourages ongoing exploration of how we live with and relate to the things we surround ourselves with.

A defining feature of the project is the extensive use of Douglas fir across walls, floors, and joinery. The installation and finishing of the timber served as a material study, investigating how cost-effective resources can be detailed and treated for longevity. This approach is complemented by reclaimed elements, including salvaged mahogany parquet flooring from a previous EBBA project, reintroduced to extend the material’s life.

The plan is organised around a generous open kitchen and living space. A large built-in furniture element conceals the functional kitchen components, addresses the original building’s sharp angle and provides substantial storage hidden behind. This intervention helps preserve the calmness of raw plaster surfaces and the warmth of timber throughout.

A full-height sliding door connects the main bedroom to the kitchen, allowing borrowed light to filter deep into the plan. A study off the corridor doubles as a workshop space, often populated with found materials that form part of future experiments. Completing the home is a collection of bespoke objects including a stacked coffee table that forms part of an ongoing studio collection, and a custom Douglas fir speaker developed in collaboration with Friendly Pressure and Our Department.

A home designed to evolve and change, and a place for experiments to be explored.