Our aim for this studio was to deliver something extraordinary that fulfills two fundamental human desires: to elevate the everyday through the experience of relaxed luxury, and to gratify that deep yearning for meaning and simplicity that we all feel as we live our busy lives.

Rob Mills

This was the brief for RMA who, with its design for One Hot Yoga Melbourne, had already established a reputation within the yoga community for sensitivity to the practice and an ability to take the aesthetic to a new aspirational level.

“The Sydney space required a very different response. It is in a large two-storey space in an Art Deco building in Kings Cross, which is flooded with light and has generous spaces with an exposed-frame roof structure in steel,” says Mills.

The approach to the interior has been defined by creating a calm, restorative space that takes its cues from residential designs and cuts loose from what had become the tropes of traditional gyms. At play is a softer, more feminine palette – the steel-framed windows, traditionally painted black, are white; the artwork is by Joshua Yeldham, a Melbourne-born artist living in the Hawkesbury region, whose work is thoughtful and considered. The rug’s soft tones are more suited to a residential living space than a commercial one, and instead of a desk there is a communal table. The signals are refined yet welcoming – the judgments around tactility, material palette, space and light convey a sense of purposeful serenity that whole-heartedly echoes the brand’s ambitions.

These qualities are supported by every physical interaction with the space – the leather pads on timber benches, the brass fittings and the generous sweep of linen curtains all align to imbue the place with a sense of quiet generosity delivered through quality materials that are engineered to last.