Australia’s most beautiful interiors revealed at Top 50 Rooms Awards

A sunken living room designed to seamlessly blend indoors and out has been awarded top honours at the 2017 Australian House & Garden Top 50 Rooms Awards.

The winning “Room of the Year” project, designed by Melbourne architect Dina Malathounis of Junctions90, features a neutral colour palette, tan-leather seating and a sculptural open fire surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows framing garden views. The room also won the award for Best Indoor-Outdoor Connection.

Australian House & Garden magazine editor-in-chief Lisa Green says the judging panel was taken with the concept of a contemporary sunken lounge inspired by mid-century design.

“There’s definitely a modernism resurgence at the moment and this seemed to tap into that,” Green says.

“It’s just a really lovely execution and rethinking of a family space … It’s very sophisticated but also really welcoming.”

As the Room of the Year designer, Malathounis will receive a trip for two to Paris to attend the Maison & Objet Fair in January.

The 19th annual Top 50 Rooms Awards, held in Melbourne last week was hosted by comedian and architecture enthusiast Tim Ross.

This year’s awards saw more than 150 rooms submitted by home owners and designers. Among the seven category winners was a luxurious dressing room, a cleverly positioned outdoor retreat, lavish bedroom, beautifully-functional kitchen, modern bathroom and a period living room with a surprising use of colour.

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“The mix of materials – from natural timbers and stone to contemporary, technology-led surfaces – is ever-more diverse, driven by the expectations of increasingly design-savvy home owners,” Green says.

An expert judging panel was tasked with determining the winning designs including Green, Australian House & Garden houses/interiors editor Kate Nixon, Dana Tomic-Hughes of Yellowtrace, colour expert Lucy Sutherland, Nancy Everingham from the RMIT School of Architecture and Design and Janey Ridge of Warwick Fabrics.

Having observed all this year’s entries, themes that stood out to Green were the “increasingly clever use of raw materials” and the emergence of an unselfconscious Australian design identity.

“To encapsulate the entire 50 rooms, I’d say it’s a really great reflection of ‘grown-up Australian style’,” Green says.

“Everything seems to have gelled this year. There’s a real maturity about our designs at the moment.”

One of Green’s favourite rooms among the category winners was the outdoor courtyard by Architect Prineas which took out Best Use of Materials.

“We saw such breadth of materials used this year, so the room that actually won was quite incredible.”

“Prineas used a glossy, ceramic tile on the walls which really helped to bounce light from above into the downstairs space. So you’ve got the concrete floor, the raw materials of the deck along with the ceramic and it’s just clever – really, really thoughtful.”

An online vote will determine a People’s Choice Award, with the winning entry receiving a $3000 Warwick Fabrics prize package. Voting opens today.

Australian House & Garden’s Top 50 Rooms Awards winners:

Room of the year

Winner: Dina Malathounis – Junctions90

Best use of soft-furnishings

Winner: Lisa Burdus – Lisa Burdus Interior Design

Best use of colour

Winner: Anna Dutton and Jess King – Bower Architecture

Best use of materials

Winner: Eva-Marie Prineas, Bridget Webb and Luisa Campos – Architect Prineas

Best indoor-outdoor connection

Winner: Dina Malathounis – Junctions90

Best kitchen

Winner: Meaghan Williams and Susanna Bilardo – Enoki

Best bathroom

Winner: Chris Stanley, Asha Nicholas and Chris Austin – Splinter Society

Best use of lighting

Winner: Madeleine Blanchfield – Madeleine Blanchfield Architects