Inside A Creative Family’s Surprisingly Large, Loft-Inspired Studio Apartment
A loft in Brunswick
Architects Kim Lai and Tom Orton are no strangers to apartment living. After returning from the United States, the founders of architectural studio We Are Humble moved into a one-bedroom unit in Fitzroy. Even as the couple started planning for a family, they didn’t want to leave the inner city for a traditional suburban home.
They found a solution when they heard about a new Neometro development in Brunswick. The project offered fun, loft-style apartments. Kim Lai says the couple was sold immediately.
“We bought off the plan, and during the process we found out that we were having a baby, so the extra space was definitely needed!”
Merging two spaces
Buying off-the-plan gave the couple a unique opportunity to customise their home. They combined two studio apartments with help from the project’s architects to create a single large-scale studio. The space spans 110 square metres.
The big “move” was positioning the bathroom and the kitchen in the middle of the space. This creates an entry and a bedroom without building walls around the whole bedroom, Kim Lai adds.
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For a creative family, the lack of formally assigned rooms works well. The couple brought most of their furniture with them from their previous apartment. They only introduced new pieces for their now four-year-old son, Tai Lo.
His bed is like a little tent, which means he can escape into it if he wants to because his space isn’t actually defined by walls. His red shelving acts as playful storage but also looks really fun and creates a little room divider, even when they’re empty.
Living in the workspace
Kim Lai says they largely like the idea of flexibility. They love that all the big items in their space are furniture, so they can move things around and reorganise the space.
It helps that the apartment has expansive windows, high ceilings, and robust finishes. This gives the couple’s colourful ‘stuff’ some breathing room. Outside, open-air courtyards act as the ‘lungs’ for the distinctly red-toned complex.
Their studio and cafe have become like an extension of their home too, like the ‘living room where you invite other people into’. Kim and Tom have an astoundingly short commute to work, having moved the We Are Humble office to the ground floor of the same apartment building. They even opened a casual cafe from their studio space too, dubbed Drip, offering exclusively hot and cold filter coffee on tap.