Montage Apartment by Studio Prineas
Given their minimal approach to structural changes, Studio Prineas’ transforms a compact family home in Sydney with a masterful sleight of hand. Within, environmental responsibility and innovation are mutually celebrated.
Working with an existing floorplan in this Double Bay apartment, the Sydney-based studio re-scaled its volume, modernised its expression, and enhanced its quality of natural light, creating an invigorating home that resonates with a backlit glow. Strategic structural changes enabled this flow, including removal of joinery to convert a tight dining space into a lounge, eliminating the kitchen’s restrictive bulkhead, and reshaping an obtrusive wall into a sculpted entity that morphs into an island.
Award Recognition
It is the merging of efficient design approaches with a flair for bold tonal choices that garnered Studio Prineas the winning accolade in the Residential Design category at the 2025 Australian Interior Design Awards (AIDA). “These small, strategic moves have created a clearer sense of spatial logic with improved amenity,” states studio founder Eva-Marie Prineas.
Midas Touch
Most ingenious is the metamorphosis of the existing doors. Replacing the dated architraves with rounded frames and top panels—and painting both them and the existing doors in a saturated Kodak yellow—transformed the spaces, considerably heightening the scale of the rooms. Coated in the same colour, the ceilings enhance this fluid cohesion, as do Bankston’s complementary Bronze Lever 01 handles from the Casts Collection by Edition Office that adorn all the internal doors. Solid yet refined, they draw the eye around the home like golden punctuation points. Eruditely crafted, the slim, long handles extend from petite cylinders, enhancing a generous sense of scale throughout the home. Their warm shimmer is accentuated by herringbone timber floors that flow like honey across the spaces.
“The property looks completely new, while its build has produced minimal waste.”
- Eva-Marie Prineas
Bold Strokes
The apartment’s original bathrooms were swathed in oversized hand-cut panels of feathery grey Calacatta marble. Rather than replacing their cooling composure, Prineas enhanced the subtle gold veining that charges across their surface. Regrouting the stone with a warm yellow tone that matches those of the ceilings and doors, these private spaces were fully refreshed with minimal structural intervention. The shimmer of the Lever 01 door handles further accentuate the stone’s gilded highlights.
