76 / Inside OutINSIDE homes
W
hen an architect follows the
advice of property developers,
you can bet it’s worth listening
to. That’s why Steve Koolloos,
director of MCK Architects,
moved his family back to
Sydney’s Northern Beaches,
where he was raised, and
bought “the worst house in the best street”.
Constructed of blonde brick, its rooms were poky and dark,
and there was poor connection between the interior and exterior.
“The house was one of the ugliest ducklings I’d seen,” says Steve.
“Way too much brown, fake sandstone and extremely dark.
The layout, worse than the aesthetic, had seen an ad-hoc series
of terrible renovations, completely thwarting any functionality.”
In other words, it was ideal for his plans! After many years of
living in small Sydney apartments, Steve, his wife Dani and their
two young children were ready for more room. And as an architect,
he could see the bones of something fabulous and set about
redesigning it into an open-plan, three-bedroom family home.
Mind you, this wasn’t a no-expense-spared project. Steve used
his professional know-how and the skills he’d picked up from his
father, a Dutch migrant carpenter, to make the reno as economical
as possible. “Every school and university holiday, I worked on site
for my dad, doing everything from simple labouring to carpentry,”
says Steve. “He taught me how to use my hands and I learnt the
basics of how a building gets put together. At night he’d work
on his drawing board, crafting his next project – and it was there
I first fell in love with the art of drafting, ink on film, that led
me down the path of architecture.” ARTWORKS: (TOP RIGHT, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT)SHADOW ON THE RUNBY MARIA LAX, MARIA-LAX.COM.RED AND YELLOW TIMBER DOWEL SCULPTURES BY STEVE KOOLLOOS. A PRINT FROM THELANDSCAPESSERIESBY MARIA LAX, AS BEFORE. BRYLLE & JACOBSEN ‘HANGING MOON’ PENDANT LIGHT (OPPOSITE), 1ST DIBS, 1STDIBS.COM. FLOS ‘AIM’ LIGHTS (IN BACKGROUND), EUROLUCE, EUROLUCE.COM.AU