Inspiration starts at home: Inside the stunning home of architect Rob Mills

Occasionally, in this job, it can feel like you’ve fallen through Alice’s looking glass into a world you’ve never known before.

Talking to architect Rob Mills while touring through his Armadale home is a bit like that. It’s a good thing – an educational, warm conversation on life and what sort of design we apply to happily live that way.

The World Architecture Awards, handed out in London in February recognised Mills’ singular vision, the Armadale house winning the Best Residential Interior gong. The architect has garnered much praise and many awards over the years, but this one is special.

“This is a really personal award,” says Mills. “Designing your own house is an intense experience, it’s not easy. This win is really the ultimate for me.”

Inspiration and challenge are the guiding lights by which Mills charts his passage. A home should be many things, but these two are chief among them. “I feel like if you are inspired by where you live, it keeps life fresh. There are always new experiences, challenges along the way.”

Mills is unafraid of making a robust contribution to the design discourse. His work is often high end, daring and dynamic, but his philosophy always tracks things back to a more prosaic level – “It’s all about the way we live.”

To that end, his own home renovations were an instructive exercise for the architect. The inherent qualities of an old warehouse afforded him an opportunity to fine-tune his skills and living in the space for 12 years before beginning the transformation meant he knew the home he wanted to create.

“I like the idea of comfort, familiarity, but also glamour and style,” he says. His Armadale house beautifully articulates those seemingly incongruous codes. That doesn’t mean though, that this is a difficult house. Far from it.

• Related: ‘It ticks boxes:’ Why this furniture is highly coveted
• Related: How a ‘cubist’ house became a career-making project
• Related: The family retreat designed for barefoot luxury

But what it does is present things as diverse as the full-throttle black marble powder room with mirrors that make you go on forever to something as simple and lovely as two children’s bedrooms with an adjoining door and half circle window in each room made whole when you roll the door back. That sense of familial warmth and full blown luxury is pretty much the theme. The marriage in less assured hands, maybe not. Here, it works like a charm.

We love how the entry presents as a kind of tunnel that eases you toward the light. There are straight lines and curves – the first pointer to that design dichotomy – and then, there’s the staircase.

A glorious swirl of drama, the black marble steps wind up, taking in more light as you ascend before, at the top bedroom level, revealing the entire circle of skylight banded by a black cross. Lines and curves. Splendour anchored by soul.

But let’s get to the central level before we go anywhere else, because it’s here that the genius lies. Two sublime spaces bookend this floor separated by a sumptuous kitchen and dining space.

“The kitchen is sculptural. It had to stand on its own two feet,” says Mills. Presenting like a burnished pavilion that wouldn’t be out of place in Versailles, the kitchen is also almost entirely brass. It’s a sight that’s daring but undeniably buzzing with warmth.

It helps that elements such as a solid grey marble anchoring stove to bench harks back to the old kitchen farmhouse; the under-bench brass ribs have a beach-house vibe (albeit sumptuous); the beautiful pale marble floors show a rusty-brass seam running through them to play against the gleam.

These elements go to another Mills truism that among the luxe and lush, there must be “the familiar; an understanding and a sense of belonging”.

The loft of the ceilings and light from the north-edge skylight allow the kitchen its full flourish, while a shallow channel runs a soothing stream of water from the “rock mountain” in the garden, through the internal wall to behind the dining table.

This design light and shade is sublime and further underscored by those rooms on either side of the glamour. To the western edge the living room is a tranquil beauty, its full-height glass over the green canopy of trees and the park beyond giving you the floaty feeling only living up among the leaves can.

This west-side story of the house facing, and with access to, a green “common” bordered on all sides by other residences is a classic, but under-used way of living in Melbourne. Mills believes it should be the way of the future, a way to curb the dreaded sprawl.

Back inside and at the other end of the living-kitchen level, past that black marble powder room, step down into another world. This one, the quiet-reading/TV study that looks out over the street if you like, or shutters up to create a limed oak-lined cocoon of contemplation.

Even in these more serene, intimate areas, though, that hint of the opulent stirs the senses – door frames, handles, edges of brass an elegant recall to the vivacity and bonhomie beyond.

Slips of glass or subtle cavities allow the light to move into different spaces, creating mini galleries and allowing glimpses of artwork on display across the levels.

You can take those epic stairs and swirl up to the top level or use the brass-doored lift. The two children’s bedrooms sit to the eastern front, while at the other end the main suite is an exhilarating study in balance.

The en suite, with its cool marble and brass, overlooks the trees and rooftops. The main bedroom rolls its ceiling down to create a gorgeous intimacy enhanced by its treetop locale and private balcony.

Mills believes a home should be healthy, light, airy and sound. The raw finishes of stone, the easy-but-handsome simplicity of stucco walls, the minimal use of paint and chemical products creates a base layer of liveability.

It must have function – the ground-level separate apartment yet another demonstration of the smart facility. It’s then you can play with the dash, dare and detail. “I want to take people beyond where they simply are and inspire them,” Mills says. Job done.