Australian Interior Design Awards Standout Residences 2022

Our collective fascination with interior design has steadily been increasing over the latter half of the past decade. While pandemic-induced lockdowns over the past couple of years have quite literally forced us to turn inwards and cultivate our personal spaces with scented candles and dopamine-promoting soft furnishing, a perceptible shift away from ‘going out’ and towards ‘staying in’ had already taken place.

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These changing priorities can partly be attributed to the economy in which millennials of today grew up. However, the publicization of our private lives also has a role to play. The rise of Instagram in the early 2010s saw blurry Facebook — sorry, Meta — club photos swapped for increasingly stylised interior shots. A shelf corner adorned with a candle here, some artfully placed coffee table books there. Slowly but surely, our appetite for interior design has grown, with meticulously crafted homes being embraced with the voracity once reserved for Phoebe Philo’s Celine or Miuccia’s early ‘90s Prada.

Fortunately, the Australian Interior Design Awards is here to satiate our appetites for stunning dwellings. Deemed the standout project across the board, Clare Cousins Architects took home the top accolades — the Premier Award and Residential Design award — for Stable and Cart House. A utilitarian North Melbourne building transformed into a home, this property was conceived to balance aesthetics with liveability, with the project lauded for its material palette which not only prioritises sustainability but “displays a responsive understanding of an Australian design language that supports the opportunity for the house to age gracefully.”

The Residential Decoration award was presented to Troye Sivan House by Flack Studio for showcasing the client’s unique character through a thoughtfully curated selection of art, furniture, lighting, and objects in a way that doesn’t feel contrived while respecting the building and celebrating the original architecture by John Mockridge. The jury noted that the project “has a wonderful spirit that is overwhelmingly endearing and uplifting.”

With over seventy shortlisted entrants in the Residential Design and Residential Decoration categories, there was no shortage of appealing interiors to choose from. These are some of our favourite projects from this year’s Australian Interior Design Awards.