Martina Gemmola is a photographer in Melbourne (Naarm) who works with designers of all disciplines. After living in Europe and the USA, she honed her craft capturing her surroundings with sensitivity and balance. Led by light and form, she is constantly delighted by the spaces and design focused genres she works in, and the warm relationship she forms with her clients.

The Project

In Brunswick East, a heritage-listed terrace has been reimagined as Haiku House, a family home where memory and light are carefully interwoven.
With matching terraces on either side, light was the central challenge. A reworked stair with floating treads and a fine glass balustrade, quietly recalling shoji screens, draws daylight from new skylights and a high window through the centre of the home, while intimate pockets gather around it – a book lined retreat downstairs, while upstairs a study and an onsen-like bathroom are concealed behind a shoji-inspired feature wall.

Victorian character is preserved and reinstated, with arched openings, a preserved plaster keystone and softly bagged brickwork keep Brunswick’s texture in play. The kitchen works as hearth and bar, with warm timber joinery, blush stone, handmade tiles and gentle brass notes.

The name Haiku House emerged during the build itself, when the long and often challenging process was lightened by an exchange of poems between client and designer. These haiku distilled moods, materials and aspirations, reminding all involved that creativity can carry both resilience and play. Today, the house reflects that spirit: pragmatic yet lyrical, rooted in heritage yet open to the future.

Architect: Kim Kneipp, Steffan Welch Architects