Beach Slice

A home away from home mainly serves two purposes: enjoying a place somewhere else and escaping daily routines: nature instead of town, quiet instead of noise, casual instead of organised, social instead of insular (or vice versa), and leisure instead of work.
This house was designed for three parties to holiday together effortlessly. It is split into two halves: a communal area on one side and private bedroom wing on the other.

We constructed the external wall from LVL’s, their depth can accommodate internal storage, window seats to commune or reflect, it frames and curates views and facilitates both engagement with and protection from outside.

The clients have been active environmentalists for decades, having undertaken large scale developments with ESD requirements themselves. We were chosen as the architects for their own home for our green credentials and track record.

Beach Slice was designed to minimise embodied energy used in its construction as well as the operational energy used during its lifetime. It was also designed to maintain biodiversity on site.

The design of this house applies principles of passive solar design, solar control, zoning and compartmentalisation, high thermal mass, insulation and cross ventilation to maximise sustainability while maintaining comfort. It is highly insulated, featuring high-performance, double-glazed doors and windows and is high in thermal mass by using a concrete slab for the floor and recycled bricks for internal walls.

A fundamental design decision was to develop a compact form. The external wall is constructed as a curtain wall from LVL’s and build in additional functionality. By default, this reduces materials used during construction and therefore lowers embodied energy. The triangular shape of the building and minimum circulation areas allowed the program to be achieved using a smaller than average floor area for this program, as well as reducing the resources required to operate the building.

Beach Slice sits amongst bush blocks with casually placed holiday homes varying in setbacks and having low visual impact. Gum trees and grassland are still the dominating features.

We wanted our building to be recessive, modest, and evoking the familiar.

The triangular base is covered by a split roof consisting of two generous custom orb planes tilted against each other. It creates a simple but nevertheless non-conventional form with recognisable elements like extensive verandas and curtain walls. These are part of a familiar vocabulary that articulates a building as contrasting its natural surroundings.

Placing a house into a global context there should be two ambitions: lowering carbon emissions in its construction and operation plus maintaining or restoring biodiversity.

The ESD consultant was engaged early to review energy rating and to provide advice to optimise the building fabric.

The Landscape Architect developed a landscape design to provide sensitive transition between the site of the house and the bush block, using native plants appropriate to the context, providing habitation for native wildlife such as insects and frogs.

The Structural Engineer utilised the LVL’s to develop the external wall like a curtain wall system.

Cost efficiency relates to both construction and operation. This project was delivered on a reasonable construction budget, however we aimed to build less through a compact footprint and volume. We achieved program resolution, functionality and spatial comfort by reducing utility and circulation areas, playing with internal heights, internal vistas and natural light.
The house achieves a 7.9 Star Nathers Rating. Power is generated through a PV system, and rainwater collection occurs beyond statutory requirements, ensuring low operational cost over its lifetime.

"The house seems to be performing well. It is very comfortable on these warm days we have been having, and it will be interesting to see how it goes if we get some proper hot days. I ran the AC on cooling yesterday just to check that it works (we have never run it before). No need for it to be on though. The umbrellas on the deck are turning out great. They help a bit with blocking the afternoon western sun, but not completely. I need to manipulate them a bit more to see how they work."

Mark Burford (client)

"Sultans of Swing" - in the spirit of 'Quiet Architecture', it may go unnoticed at first sight but reveals itself gradually and becomes appreciated over time.