Residents at this remote Australian lodge can step straight out of bed to the side of a long narrow outdoor pool.
Rooms inside the single-storey holiday house by Melbourne architects BKK branch away from a concrete masonry wall that acts as a spine.
The timber-framed house, named Beached House, is externally clad in vertical ash panels and diagonally arranged zinc sheets.
Small, decked terraces nestle into corners around the building's perimeter, providing shelter from the wind and sun at different times of the day.
Recycled timber provides a floor surface inside the house, where an open-plan living room leads to a master bedroom on the east side of the house and four additional en suite rooms to the west.
The house follows many other Australian residences featured recently on Dezeen, including a steel-plated Melbourne bunker - see all our stories about houses in Australia here.
Photography is by Peter Bennetts.
Here are some more details from BKK Architects:
Beached House
Entering this home begins with the decision to leave the city.
The recurring ritual that plays out in the journey to the holiday home is integral to the conception of this house: the car and its contained interior; the stop off for provisions in the last town before arrival; getting out and unchaining the entry gate before driving onto the site; the wall that confronts them, the view denied; the welcoming gesture of the front portal wedge; and the final release to the view as one enters the main living spaces.
Beached House continues BKK Architects interest in the curation of the domestic as a sequence of unfolding spaces that deny, and then release views. The journey through the house is through a series of subtly shifting spaces that alter one’s orientation to climate and terrain.
Beached House has been conceived formally as an exercise in volumetric origami; folding of spaces over and upon each other. In this way the house resembles a small village or informal site occupation that has aggregated over time. There are a number of these folded spatial sequences within the house that allow for playful discovery and encounter as well as opportunities for varying connections between spaces.
Carefully sited in response to prevailing conditions and site, there is a sense that the home has been washed ashore and then embedded into the terrain, anchored against the elements. The external spaces are located, nestled, between these elements and are orientated according to the shift in the wind and sun patterns throughout the day. The location of these external spaces offers alternatives for occupation and shelter depending on the prevailing weather and time. The large masonry wall forms an organisational spine to the house whilst also anchoring the various elements firmly into the landscape. This investigation of the wall as a mark on the landscape and the exploration of site occupation are ongoing areas of investigation for BKK Architects.
Builders will always have ‘smoko’ in the most sheltered spot they can find and it was interesting to watch them occupy imaginary deck spaces before they were built. These casual occupations confirmed the climate analysis we had done to determine the most appropriate spaces for outdoor recreation.
This home offers various readings and differing options for occupation to the owners. It is intended that living in the house will be an unfolding series of moments, linked closely to climate and site that will continually delight and surprise.
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Cost Effectiveness
- Largely timber framed structure
- Efficiency of structure with both external and internal cladding direct fixed
- Materials with inherent finish – little or no maintenance required.
- Efficient Planning and zoning
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Energy Efficiency
- 5 Star + Energy Rating
- Septic System with integrated filtration system for landscape drip irrigation
- Rainwater storage and reuse
- Large thermal mass to southern side
- Double glazing throughout
- Recycled timber floors
- Energy rated appliances
- Heat exchange hot water system
External Walls
- Radial sawn silvertop ash ship-lapped timber cladding, Preschem oil finish
- Black zinc sheet finish on plywood
- Charcoal split face and smooth face DesignerBlock from Boral
Windows
- Generally black powdercoat throughout
- Capral Narrowline 425 profile sashless double glazed
- Custom steel framed double glazed
- Capral 125 glass louvres
Flooring
- 200mm recycled tongue & groove stringybark
- Cavalier Bremworth Moods of Monet - 'Absolutely black' wall to wall carpet
Heating/Cooling
- Passive cross ventilation
- Mechanical underfloor (ducted) reverse cycle aircon
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Architect: BKK Architects
Project Team: Julian Kosloff, Tim Black, Simon Knott, Jane Caught, Michael Roper
Location: Victoria Australia
Completion Date: January 2010
Gross floor area (m2) 349 square meters (excluding decks)
Consultants:
Builder Overend Constructions; Chris Overend
Structural Engineer Irwin Consult; Patrick Irwin
Quantity Surveyor Construction Planning and Economics; Geoffry Moyle