In Conversation: Fabbrica's interior designers reflect on their process

When we started working on Fabbrica, we were both thinking about our experience in apartment design. For me, I was influenced by the times I lived in apartments within cities like Milan, New York and Berlin.

Coming from the Collingwood/Fitzroy area and having worked there for quite some time, I think I understand the demographic very well. I was excited to create something great in my community.

The result is a project that is very much about the evolution of a site. At the same time, Fabbrica has been created through a reflection of what has come before and what that means to a place like Fitzroy, which is always evolving.

One thing I love about the development is that we were able to connect to the heart of Fitzroy by incorporating the work of local artisans into our designs. They crafted certain elements, such as the customised kitchen fittings in the Bergman & Co. apartments.

Fitzroy really does have a long tradition of making that has made individual creativity possible in this area.

That is so true and another thing I love about this whole Fabbrica journey… How often do two designers get to work together on the same project? I’ve not done that before. It was brave of Pace to bring us together so they can in turn offer Winwood Mckenzie-designed apartments and apartments designed by Bergman & Co.

It definitely enriched the project because we were able to collaborate and bounce ideas off each other in order to push our apartment designs further than we would if we had just been working individually. Delivering two different design responses as part of the process has been a really rewarding experience.

Giving people the element of choice – of being able to choose between the Winwood Mckenzie design and the Bergman & Co. design – is incredibly interesting.

And then within the different designs themselves, there are a series of upgrades and custom elements that allow people to adapt their apartment to the way they live. The idea of choice is a way of moving beyond a generic apartment type and creating a way of fine tuning the design to respond to or acknowledge that people will use these apartments differently.

From Bergman & Co.’s perspective, we do a lot of hospitality design and so Fabbrica allowed us to be extremely creative. It was a great opportunity to bring that element of our practice into our apartment design and meant we could push the boundaries of expectation. We were constantly asking how to make the spaces more efficient and exciting, because no one wants to see something they’ve seen before.

That’s something we have in common – we design from the experience of the end user and how people experience spaces. I also feel that apartment living in Melbourne is getting to a point where apartments have to provide a high level of amenity so people can create community and feel a sense of belonging.

I think it’s apartment living if it can engage a social aspect of your life.

Definitely, and the communal spaces in Fabbrica are really important because we’ve envisaged them as a way to bring the life of Fitzroy into the building.

Apartment living has evolved a lot, even from what it was five years ago. It’s way more interactive and engaging of community. Another significant change is that a lot of people are working from home now. So we had to ask how to make the apartments feel like a place where people can work, but then shut that work down and bring a social element to the space, and that’s the reason we came up with the concept of adaptability.

And how did you approach your material palette?

I like energy and wanted a bit of drama; something unexpected, like some crazy marble, which provides a layered background, rather than walking into a neutral space. However, it needed to be adaptable enough for people to add their layers. I want Bergman & Co.’s design to provide an incredible platform for people to bring the story of their own life into the space and to have it fit nicely.

That’s another thing we have in common – an emphasis on materiality and attention to detail, and making sure both facilitate and improve the experience of the space. From the Winwood Mckenzie perspective, we made sure to use materials that catch the light, but at the same time are very durable and will be able to amplify and encompass all the best qualities of people’s own creativity and taste.

I also love the sculptural elements of what both of us have achieved. The curved details embodied in the kitchen island, cocktail bar, bench seating and main bedroom’s dressing table will become personal pleasures for the people who live there.

That’s definitely something that came through in our experience of working with Pace, as they have experience building apartments for a broad range of people. By bringing our design experience to the project we were able to contribute ways in which spaces can help people’s lives and provide delight.