Located in the Melbourne suburb of Bentleigh, the CIÉL apartment building combines bright interiors and muted fixtures with a simple colour palette.

Interior designer Andrew Zunica, founding principal of Zunica Design entered the project very late in the process when the layout had been designed and locked in along with the envelope of the building. For Zunica, the interior design of the apartments was, therefore, all about maximising the potential for the interior spatial planning within the existing approved framework.

Named after the French word for sky, the CIÉL building designed by Perkins Architects for B Central developers consists of one, two and three-bedroom as well as penthouse apartments.

Following a review of the layouts for all of the apartments, Zunica’s design team decided to tweak the interior spaces to maximise views, sight lines, aspect and penetration of natural light into the space. Giving due consideration to the sky reference in the apartments’ name, their design intent was to mimic it within the spaces.

“The idea was to have really airy, light-drenched accommodation and materials and spaces, even though there were two colour schemes across the project,” Zunica explained.

However, the light and the dark schemes have minimal variance - the base materials, flooring, timber cabinetry, tiling and the paint colour remain consistent, with just the carpeted areas as well as some of the bathroom tiling being slightly darker.

The Vivid Slimline collection from Phoenix Tapware was an easy choice for Zunica.

“With CIÉL, it was all about simple, neutral spaces, and Vivid Slimline is a really minimal, slim format product. We purposefully didn’t want the fixtures or finishes to stand out – the apartments have been designed to be calm and the slimline profile of the collection really fit with the rest of the detailing within the project.”

Zunica chose Phoenix’s Vivid Slimline tapware collection in Brushed Nickel for the apartments’ kitchens as well as bathrooms. The tapware included sink mixers, basin mixers, twin showers and shower/ wall mixers.

“It is a great value product for us and we use it in a range of multi-residential projects and in hotel applications as well.”