Sydney Open Symposium House toursYOLO Surry Hills

YOLO Surry Hills

Sydney Open Symposium: House Tours

Sunday 24 May 2026

A playful shop-top apartment that uses clever design to transform a compact space

About the building

On Surry Hills’ Crown Street, local fashion institution The Standard Store is known for its curated selection and striking interior fit-out, complete with blue carpet and a glass-brick counter. Behind the scenes, this aesthetic continues upstairs, with the store owners recently transforming the attached shop-top apartment into a chic residence that maximises a compact interior footprint.

The couple had sold their beloved family home to purchase the building, and were consolidating work and living into a single premises. The prospect of downsizing was daunting, but the couple worked with Pattern Studio to reframe the design process as an empowering opportunity to create a space that perfectly suited their needs. The result is a compact, efficient and individually tailored space.

To meet the brief and the clients’ budget, the design response had to work within the existing building structure, creating a thoughtful and pragmatic floor plan out of a tight footprint. The designers were meticulous with using the available area in the most efficient way possible, optimising the property’s orientation, vistas and connection to the outside world. A treehouse-like bedroom was carved out of the unused attic space, a dressing room is tucked behind the kitchen, and the compact bathroom is compensated by a sculptural black bathtub in the bedroom, luxuriously positioned to overlook the trees. The resulting spaces feel lush and expansive despite being compact. The palette and furnishings are stylish but playful.

This is a home that feels liberated and unburdened by convention. ‘YOLO’ – you only live once – was originally just the lighthearted nickname for the project, but it has grown to represent something more profound: that architecture and design are powerful mechanisms that can be used to enable us to live the lives we want.