Flinders Lane Apartment

Location: Melbourne, Victoria
Year: 2024
Scope: Interior design
Status: Completed 2024
Photography: Marlena Quill

Warehouse apartment with steel windows, exposed concrete and oak joinery

The brief

A warehouse apartment on Flinders Lane, bought by a recently downsized couple who had left a large family home in the suburbs and wanted city life. The shell was good, high ceilings, big steel windows, exposed concrete, but the previous fit-out was cold and grey, all hard surfaces and no warmth, and it echoed.

They asked us to make it feel like a home rather than a showroom. They wanted it warm, quiet and easy to live in for two, with room for the few pieces of furniture and art they had chosen to keep. No structural work, an interiors project, but one that needed every element to pull its weight.

Original warehouse shell with high ceilings and large steel windows

Our response

We left the bones of the warehouse exactly as they were and added warmth, softness and a single sweep of timber joinery to hold the whole apartment together.

The defining move is a continuous run of oak joinery that runs the length of the main space, hiding the kitchen, the pantry, storage and a study nook behind a calm timber wall. It gives the apartment a single, quiet datum and lets the raw concrete and steel windows be the texture rather than the noise.

We warmed the floor with wide oak boards over the concrete, brought in wool and linen for softness and acoustics, and lit the apartment in low, layered pools rather than the flat downlight grid it came with. The palette is deliberately narrow, oak, off-white, a soft clay and the existing grey concrete, so the couple's art and a few good pieces of furniture have room to be seen.

Continuous oak joinery wall running along the living space

Materials and approach

European oak joinery showing the grain — A single run of European oak joinery the length of the main space.

Wide oak floorboards laid over concrete — Wide oak floorboards laid over the existing concrete slab.

Wool and linen soft furnishings in warm light — Wool and linen soft furnishings to warm the acoustics of the hard shell.

Joinery: European oak, oiled
Floor: Wide oak boards over existing concrete
Existing fabric: Exposed concrete and original steel windows, retained
Soft furnishings: Wool, linen and leather
Lighting: Layered low-level fittings, dimmable throughout

Outcome

The apartment now feels like the home of two people rather than a display suite. The warehouse character that drew the owners in is still the first thing you notice, but it is warm now, and quiet, and it holds their life comfortably. The project was completed in 2024 with no structural work and a short, tidy build.