Piccolo creates homes that are deeply considered and of exceptional quality.
Homes where people love to live.
There’s a tangible atmosphere of relevance and a purposeful resolve to a Piccolo House. Each design detail cultivates a meticulous level of craft, material and finishes to define homes that converse with the people who live within and around them. You can feel it in the fluidity of space and how it unfolds from the public realm to herald the moment of arrival and then continue throughout seamlessly resolved, design-led homes. You can see it in how the light washes across surfaces, illuminating expressions, patinas and junctures to emphasise the beauty and precision in each detail. Piccolo Houses are distinguished by their attentiveness to the nuances of their occupants, leaning into a multidisciplinary development process derived from half a century of experience to effortlessly bind them to people and place.
My parents — Mima and Martin — founded Piccolo in the early 70s. I grew up living and breathing their approach to creating homes for Australians. Half a century later, that upbringing naturally manifested as a desire to continue and intentionally evolve their legacy. Through constantly observing the vernacular, collecting wisdom and cataloguing knowledge of residential development, we have been able to steer so that each iteration of a Piccolo House through a process that leverages that deep well of wisdom, fostering it alongside intuition.
Today, Piccolo continues to deposit and withdraw from that metaphorical bank. We are still proudly family-owned yet extend to a small, long-standing contingent of passionate people, a myriad of long-running relationships with design vanguards, and a larger pool of trades, makers and innovators who come together in the collaboration of homes that carry the grain and cultural expression of their neighbourhoods. All our consultants are entrusted with the same challenge: a commitment to delivering extraordinary outcomes that evolve entire streetscapes through a deep understanding of what we believe people want from their homes and how to capture this. Each person involved in the creation of a Piccolo House is joined in their dedication to the Piccolo philosophy: to design homes driven by the people who will live in and around them, emulating the character of their locale, transcending trends and navigating the ebbs and flows of time to emerge as exemplars of design and culture.
Given the relatively small scale of their program in the overarching built landscape, I’ve always focused on the home's unparalleled importance within our cultural imaginations. Beginning with Garden House a decade ago, which represented a turning point, Piccolo recalibrated to reflect this significance, existing to foster it through a focus on mixed-use buildings imbued with a discerning sense of sanctuary. From deep inquiry into the sites we choose to develop to the careful tendering of the architects and designers we align with, the Piccolo brand has evolved with intention into a space where it is now beginning to reveal its methodology. Tempered by relevance and agility, each House responds to its unique conditions, borrowing from and extending upon the inimitable qualities of their locales by integrating built environments that gild the already spirited civic ambience of some of Melbourne’s most established neighbourhoods.
As a team, we have defined those pillars that act as touchstones of our philosophy - refined comfort, design craft, uncompromising delivery and enduring quality. Each facet articulates a fundamental perspective on designing and building responsive, beautiful homes for modernity. Carefully curated homes are distinguished by the way they contribute to their surroundings; homes that cultivate community and quietude in equal measure; homes of eminent craft and evident resolve; and homes that aim to elevate the lives of those who live within them to ensure maximum enjoyment.
I am a self-confessed perfectionist. My focus, and that of every person who contributes to the development of a Piccolo House, remains on the gentle transitions between urban planning, architecture, interior design and landscape and how they affect each other. Prototyping has become the crystal ball of our methodology, allowing us to experience how the convergence of each disciple will look and feel in a finished home. It offers a process through which we can experiment with materials, scale, flow, and light. It allows for the human experience and for those adjustments, large and small to be made so that perfection is attainable. It provides for the journey that ultimately leads to refinement.
This book shines a light on the people, places and qualities that define a Piccolo House. It narrates our journey in refinement and expresses across its chapters those distinctions that see an apartment transcend the limitations of design alone to create homes in sync with their urban village neighbourhoods. It champions the global relevance of the architects and interior designers who have been instrumental in understanding and interpreting the Piccolo philosophy harmoniously and within the context of each House so that they are independently expressive yet merit the same touchstones to their success. This book recognises the similarities across each Piccolo House by talking naturally to their common ground. It is a manifesto exploring the way each iteration yields to the one before, constantly raising the benchmark for residential design through a dedication to creating homes that look and feel exceptional.
In shaping an eminent contemporary Australian home — one that responds equally to sociological, economic, environmental, aesthetic and personal ideals —, I have discovered the Piccolo raison d’être and the driving force behind a passion for development that was nurtured by my parents half a century ago and continues to motivate my personal and professional commitment to forever evolving the very notion of home through the lens of design.