The client’s brief for this holiday home on the Sunshine Coast called for a contemporary interpretation and abstraction of traditional South Pacific and South East Asian architecture. The design explores and exploits the spatial characteristics, materials and tectonics offered by these traditional architectures.
Using an existing house as a starting point, a contemporary ‘barefoot’ holiday house was created. The fan-shaped site is narrow at the street front and opens out onto a canal at the rear. This allowed for the creation of two wings branching out to either side of a central arcaded court space. The work utilises a ‘craft’ sensibility to materials and detailing, offering a tactile and exotic character.
Water and tropical landscaping enables the house to ‘open up’ on the relatively compact site. All internal spaces open out onto the central court via large sliding glass doors, which fold away into carefully concealed recesses allowing the house to effectively become a single space at the ground level.
