Hawthorn House

by AM Architecture

The kitchen begins as a white marble slab sitting on a heavy timber table and holds the gas cook-top. The dining table continues unbroken from beneath the marble into the dining area, running for approximately 7.5 metres, and creating an elegant formality.

This replaces the gesture of the formal dining table seating a generous fifteen people.
At one end the kitchen leads into a prep kitchen and larder and at the dining end the kitchen bench drops lower, and becomes a cushioned seat running parallel to the dining table to accommodate a revolving conversation at dinner parties.

Finally, the table leads to doubles doors opening onto a north facing garden. This arrangement, stylistically and practically brings the kitchen, meals, dining and living together in a gesture of informal and communal gathering, as one might experience in a farmhouse kitchen.

The marble plinth continues in each of the wet areas celebrating the daily rituals of cooking, cleaning and washing and creating associations with the Victorian through this age-old material. Black steel creates a reference to the steel detail prevalent in the Victorian era, and various other parts of the new language are dropped into the heritage interior to bind the two distinct parts together.