Altus Design Studio

Altus Design Studio Sydney based design studio with a passion for colour, texture and pattern. Residential & Small Commercial Interior Design.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the collector’s preview of Sydney Contemporary, immersed in the best of Australian co...
03/09/2026

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the collector’s preview of Sydney Contemporary, immersed in the best of Australian contemporary art. Definitely one of my favourite ways to spend a day!

These are a few of the works that stopped me. Nowhere near an exhaustive list, just the ones I keep thinking about.

Artists and galleries are tagged, apart from the final piece, which is by Sid Pattni Michael Reid Sydney. Instagram has a limit on how many people you can tag and I hit it, which probably tells you something about the afternoon.

Sydney Contemporary opened today and runs until Sunday at Carriageworks. Go if you can, and give yourself more time than you think you’ll need.

01/09/2026

Three levels, one very full agenda. A morning at Putney with our client, going through plans and finishes and watching the house start to make sense. The eighties chrome staircase is on borrowed time!

Meet Alice. Studio Coordinator. Quiet operator. Dessert sceptic.Alice has joined us as Studio Coordinator and Design Sup...
31/08/2026

Meet Alice. Studio Coordinator. Quiet operator. Dessert sceptic.

Alice has joined us as Studio Coordinator and Design Support, working part-time while she studies Interior Design and makes a career change into the industry.

French by birth, she spent the first five years of her life in Cameroon, her high school years in New York, studied at university in Canada and worked in London before eventually finding her way to Sydney. It's fair to say she brings a fairly international outlook to our Balmain studio.

At Altus, Alice is the one keeping everything moving. Superstar organisational skills, a very good eye for detail, and that rare knack of quietly getting on with things and having them done before anyone thinks to ask.

Outside the studio she's an avid reader and, most remarkably, has no sweet tooth whatsoever, remaining entirely unmoved by the smell of baked goods drifting up from our neighbours at Sandy Bake Shop. Something we're still trying to understand!

27/08/2026

Nobody hires a designer because they can't choose a tile. They hire one because there are five hundred tiles, a twelve week lead time on the one they like, and a builder who needs an answer by Thursday.

It's not the decisions themselves, but the number of them, all connected to each other, none of them pausing because work got busy or someone's home sick.

If you're weighing up whether to take on the reno yourself, that's usually the moment worth a conversation.

HOMECOMING QUEEN. A home completely transformed by colour. The starting point was restrained neutrals and the end result...
24/08/2026

HOMECOMING QUEEN. A home completely transformed by colour. The starting point was restrained neutrals and the end result was warm, personal and unapologetically joyful. ⁠In this room the palette was designed to feel both confident and softly cocooning.⁠ Colour blocking was used to create visual layers, depth, and cohesion between adjacent spaces.

20/08/2026

Behind the photos: four humans, an unreasonable number of cushions and lovely things, a start time we're not going to talk about, and a dog who was fairly sure the entire thing had been arranged for her.

Shoot day at our latest project. Josie, Emily and Alice made it happen. Prue brought her camera and her eye. Billie held the floor.

More from this one very soon.

Photography

Two turntables, built in.⁠⁠Briefs usually talk about storage, and storage is often a polite way of saying you'd like you...
18/08/2026

Two turntables, built in.⁠
⁠
Briefs usually talk about storage, and storage is often a polite way of saying you'd like your things out of sight. This one asked for the opposite.⁠
⁠
The joinery was designed to incorporate our client's passion for music rather than it being squeezed in as an afterthought. A small distinction with a completely different outcome.⁠
⁠
⁠
HARMONY HOUSE⁠
Joinery by Homestyle Kitchens⁠
Photography by Prue Ruscoe

Getting dressed is the first thing you do each day and the last thing anyone thinks about designing for.⁠⁠This dressing ...
17/08/2026

Getting dressed is the first thing you do each day and the last thing anyone thinks about designing for.⁠
⁠
This dressing room got glorious soft pink marble, a bench seat that actually gets used, and enough room to leave something out overnight without it reading as mess. Swipe for the full room.⁠
⁠
Worth the space, we think.⁠
⁠
⁠
KALEIDOSCOPE ON TRAFALGAR⁠
Interior design ⁠
Photography ⁠
Editorial styling

HOMECOMING QUEEN⁠ | Right now this joinery holds some special pieces with a lot of breathing space. In a year, maybe som...
12/08/2026

HOMECOMING QUEEN⁠ | Right now this joinery holds some special pieces with a lot of breathing space. In a year, maybe something different. In ten years, something else entirely. This shelving was designed to grow with the family who lives here. It's a story that will never be finished, and really, that's the goal.

10/08/2026

A beautiful home can still feel empty without the right art. It's what makes a space feel personal, warm and finished in the truest sense. For us, art isn't an afterthought, it's part of the conversation from day one.

Address

Balmain, NSW
2041

Telephone

+61400490482

Website

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