Location: Brighton, VIC
Architect: Matyas Architects & Interiors
Completed: 2025
Products used: Engineered Timber Flooring in European Oak
The project:
Knock, and Brick Veil House answers a conventional streetscape with something bold, experimental, and dynamic. Matyas Architects & Interiors chose a monumental red-brick veil, a defining feature of suburban Australia, as a continuous perforated skin that wraps the entire home. The rest of the palette centres on concrete, Corten steel, and timber – all expressed in their raw, honest state. Designed by father-and-daughter duo John and Nina Matyas for clients they’d known for 20 years, the home is a study in trust and material expression. As John puts it, ‘everywhere you look, you get excited.’
The brief:
After a decades-long friendship, a couple with three children engaged the studio to design a family home on a typical but beautiful Brighton street. That brief prioritised space, privacy, and longevity, introducing the guiding idea of sculptural forms with function and purpose. The intention was to give the family room to move across a generous plan, with integrated landscaping connecting the living spaces to courtyards and gardens.
Materially, the blueprint was a raw, honest approach that favoured natural and hard-wearing finishes over anything dressed up or concealed. Brick, concrete, steel, and engineered timber were noted for their texture and staying power, expressed in their raw state to create the timeless, considered character the clients and studio encouraged.
The solution:
Outside, Krause bricks in a heritage red form the perforated lattice veil, which acts as a brise soleil, offering shade and privacy from the street while letting light filter through in patterns that shift from morning to evening. Inside, careful planning keeps the near-1,000-square-metre home from feeling cavernous, holding a balance between intimacy and scale. The atrium is the high point, a double-height void anchored by a central concrete staircase.
Wide European Oak boards run right through the ground floor, tying the kitchen, dining, and living zones into one continuous plane. Against the board-marked concrete ceilings and the deep red of the brick, the pale, open-grained oak warms the palette and softens what could otherwise read as a heavy, monolithic interior. The boards carry a sawn-cut finish, so the natural knotting and grain variation stay visible, giving the floor texture and movement rather than a flat, uniform surface.
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