IOTA director Amy McDonnell set herself a challenging brief when remodelling Lewis House in Cottesloe.
“We didn’t mimic the old, but we did want to find a way to make sure that everything we did felt like it belonged there,” Ms McDonnell told Business News.
The Lewis House project was a collaboration between Ms McDonnell (Iota) and her former Arcadia Design Studio colleague Sally-Ann Weerts, now of Studio Roam, and won a Best of State Award for residential design at the recent Australian Interior Design Awards.
“[It’s] an amazing Spanish Mission house, but it had a few livability issues,” Ms McDonnell said of the Barsden Street property.
The solution was to reconfigure the house via a ground floor excavation, which was completed with O’Connor-based Assemble Building Co.
“It [was] a pretty significant reconfiguration of the house while being really sensitive to the heritage qualities,” Ms McDonnell said.
National architecture firm Hames Sharley also won a Best of State Award at the AIDAs, in commerical design, for the reactivation of a 35-year vacant space on Hay Street into a new Perth office.
For Ms McDonnell and Ms Weerts, recognition for Lewis House follows their contribution to WA Architecture Awards-winning Jimmy’s House in North Perth, designed by MJA Studio.
Spurred in part by a desire for greater flexibility amid COVID, Ms McDonnell branched off from Arcadia to form her own practice, Iota, in 2020.
She told Business News that operating as a solo entity afforded her creative and operational fluidity.
“Typically, when a larger project comes in, I find another design studio to collaborate with, rather than hiring staff and managing that side of things,” she said, noting that other design studios opted to operate similarly.
“There are a few design studios around who are taking that approach and resource sharing to get bigger projects done.
“It’s nice to have relationships with other design studios to take up those business opportunities together.”
Iota has previously worked in collaboration with Studio Roam for interior design at the Curtin Think Space, located within the university’s Bentley campus.
In terms of solo endeavours, Iota has designed for the Curtin 5G Lab and Abacus Espresso in Leederville, with hospitality an area Ms McDonnell hopes the firm will continue to secure work in.
True of most industries in Western Australia, she said, her line of work was also grappling with long lead times and rising costs.
Ms McDonnell said this translated to having upfront conversations with clients during the planning stages of their projects.
“I think that open dialogue with clients is really important so that everyone’s expectations are clear,” she said, adding that lead times for furniture were upwards of four and a half months.
“Mostly it’s about being organised on the project and making sure the builder understands what the possible lead times for materials are and outlining that clearly in our drawings so things can get ordered as early as possible.”
Asked whether she had plans to grow her firm, Ms McDonnell said she was keen to keep her practice at the same scale at present.
“I’ve got a young family and keeping that flexibility is really key for me,” Ms McDonnell said.
“My plan is to keep the business purposefully small so that I can focus on the details and getting them right.”
