A derelict apartment in Harry Seidler's Aquarius building gets an incredible makeover

• Owner: Gabriel Bastien-Dietrich
• Project timeline: January 2022-January 2024
• Architect: Nicholas Gurney
• Builder: Alice Pamment of Pamment Project
• Landscape architect: Josh Yaqub (formerly with Adam Robinson Design)
• Most expensive cost: The curved joinery in American oak by Processed Forest Products came in around $100,000
• Where I saved the most: DIY-ing labour, help from friends, building the sofa, and joinery
• Most unexpected cost: The rooftop crazy pavers cost around $40,000
• What I’d do differently: “I installed underfloor heating in the bathroom, and it’s incredible on winter mornings. Next time, it’s going everywhere.”

It was a friend’s apartment in Harry Seidler’s iconic brutalist block Aquarius in Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay that sparked something inside Gabriel Bastien-Dietrich.

“His apartment was tiny, gun-barrel style, about the size of my walk-in closet, but I was always surprised by how good it felt to be there,” he remembers.

Then, in August 2020, a discreet For Sale sign appeared. A phone call revealed a “mythical” rooftop corner apartment with harbour views had hit the market.

“It was derelict, really, really dirty, and nothing was working; the walls were brown, there was cockroach faeces everywhere, the carpet was a murder scene,” Bastien-Dietrich says with a laugh. “The real estate photos had gone through some heavy panel-beating.”

Still, winter sunshine filtered through the cavern-like space, bathing it in golden light; there was mist over the harbour, and the view from each of the three levels became more special the higher he climbed.

“I couldn’t fathom spending $1 million on a 39-square-metre apartment; it was absolutely insane, but I had to do it,” he says.

Plans for a cheap reno and an IKEA kitchen were thwarted quickly by news that the roof leaked when it rained and had been doing so for years – the place needed to be gutted. What should have taken three months to resolve through strata took closer to a year due to a very wet summer, Bastien-Dietrich says.

For the Canadian who moved to Sydney to live in eternal sunshine, there was an element of irony, he says, laughing. While he waited, he saved money (it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, after all, and “there was nothing to spend it on!”) and watched a lot of the home design show Never Too Small.

Once the apartment had been stripped to its bones, he reached out to one of the show’s architects, Nicholas Gurney, a wizard of small space design.

“When I called him, he said, ‘I’ve had three or four clients ask what I would do with it, so I already know!’ His first draft of the layout was spot on.”

Sleek, compact plans were drawn up. Among the clever design features are a drop-down table for dining or extra workspace, and a sofa that provides dinner party seating and then converts into a double bed for overnight guests.

Bastien-Dietrich wanted the micro home to feel luxurious and tactile, so he took the lead on selecting materials. Working in the fashion industry, with a background in carpentry, he says architecture and interior design are an extension of his passions.

He selected beautiful, heavily veined calacatta viola antica from Marable for the kitchen bench and splashback, calacatta noir from Avant Stone in the bathroom, plus velvety timbers and brass handles by Studio Henry Wilson.

In homage to Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, Bastien-Dietrich says he chose unfilled vein-cut travertine flooring. Curved American white oak joinery hugs the bathroom exterior to soften the space

With some effort, the old popcorn ceiling was removed with a jackhammer to reveal the raw concrete underneath. Pockmarked with imperfections, which add to its charm, it was satin sealed to bounce soft light into the room.

The only original features that Bastien-Dietrich was able to salvage were the timber handrails that led from the living space to the small, chic bedroom and then up again to the spectacular 69-square-metre rooftop garden.

“I stripped them back and reinstalled them, and there is something wonderful about it because it’s the thing you always grab,” he says. “You think about the people who have touched it, the tangible history … it’s creaky, and I have no plans to fix it because it speaks to the age of the home.”

Up on the roof, the layout allows for entertaining space, with a built-in barbecue, fridge and storage, along with hidden laundry facilities and a tool shed. The crazy pavers from Eco Outdoor are a nod to the 1960s, Bastien-Dietrich says, though their simple effect belies the effort that went into getting them there.

“They were expensive and arrived in rectangular slabs which I had to haul up to the eighth floor,” he says. “They had to be hand-cut to create the irregular effect, then needed sealing, hardening and resealing. Something that looks so effortless turned out to be the most labour-intensive part of the entire renovation.”

Bastien-Dietrich has put his heart and life savings – an estimated $500,000 – into this project, not to mention blood, sweat and tears. Working on the apartment in his spare time, under the noise constraints of the 80-unit building, he saved money where possible by doing much of the labour himself.

He also built the bedroom joinery and made the convertible sofa from scratch when his cash was drying up. “I got quotes for six and seven thousand dollars, so I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’”

While the renovation was in progress, Bastien-Dietrich separated from his partner, and then his father died. Suddenly, it felt all the more important to get the vision right.

“I get a bit emotional talking about it all,” he says. “I remember when the floor was installed, I had a big cry; it felt like a milestone moment. They were tears of joy, mostly, I think.”

Bastien-Dietrich toys with the idea of selling, which his real estate agent friend often urges him to do. But this diamond he has mined and polished feels too much of a treasure to relinquish just yet.

“It’s not a pastiche of the past; that was never going to be the case,” he says. “Because it’s so small, it had to be transformed to function for modern day. The building, as spectacular and iconic as it is, was never meant to be luxurious. It was a low-cost building, a bed-sit. Luxury didn’t serve its purpose then, but now it is enhanced beautifully.”