Architecture & Interiors

Villa Rotunda takes its Italian namesake from Villa La Rotonda – a romantic architectural icon enmeshed with an Australianness that’s both bastardised and humble – the WOWOWA way.

So, when the practice was asked to renovate a latticed Victorian-era county cottage and former Romsey Schoolhouse, it seemed only fitting to lionise the treasured rotunda folly in Edinburgh Gardens of the same colonial lineage. This typology mash-up invites and distorts the visual language of both rendering them decidedly Australian – and not European. Our rotunda walls wouldn’t be painted stucco but rammed earth with ingredients from the local quarry and locally sourced internal timbers and materials. The creamy clay matches the original yellowy weatherboards with the trimmings of each structure establishing the internal colour pallet, that would embellish this tree change residence – beautiful mints, greens & rusts.