Blok Peregian

In collaboration with Vokes and Peters
Landscape design by Prandium Studio
Photography by Christopher Frederick Jones
Completed in 2022

Blok Peregian is a modest 2 bedroom house, with a small, secondary dwelling, located underneath to exploit the slope. Initially briefed as a holiday house which soon became a permanent residence, this piece of modern modular architecture is perched atop an inclined native garden. The shadowy building adopts the colours, materials and structural rhythm of the neighboring vernacular beach house, referencing the ordinary but local urbanism from a former time. A number of raw concrete elements sit in the foreground, anchoring the composition.

The visual connection to the ocean was a strong guiding principal in the design. This drove the planning diagram of a series of parallel volumes which make a square plan. This strategy provides generous long rooms which span the width of the site and allows a view of the ocean from every room in the house, creating a home which could accommodate large gatherings of friends and family with an uncompromising connection to the ocean, and a pool area which connects to the life of the street.

Internally, a split-level cross-section registers the topography below, and yields suitable privacy for the intimate rooms within the compact plan. Large openings from the bedrooms privilege these terminal spaces with expanding views through the open-planned living room. A wide verandah spanning the entire width of the long living room acts as a coastal ‘Aediculae’, from which one is immersed in the nearby Pacific Ocean panorama.

The operable walls of the bedrooms create porosity in the plan providing light and air and visual connection between the rooms and allowing the upper level to be occupied as one large open floor plan, or can be closed up to provide privacy when guests are staying. The lower level acts as a professional art studio and a small apartment which allows guests to stay for longer periods when visiting.

The pool and deck has been carefully arranged to minimise the appearance of fencing, and coordinated with the landscape designer, Prandium Studio, to achieve a balance of privacy and prospect. The carport roof forms a garden for the bedroom above without compromising the visual amenity of the house above.

The project arranges three modules which span the width of this coastal suburban lot at the maximum height of 8.5m – a verandah module, a kitchen/living/dining module, and a bedroom/bathroom module half a level above, with a fourth module below. A perpendicular entry stair module is connected to the front of the house and controls access to the pool area and creates a balustrade for the carport roof garden.

Built in a factory and delivered as 4 modules, the house belongs to a body of work produced in collaboration between Blok Modular and Vokes and Peters, exploring the adaptability and sustainability of volumetric modular building procurement.

Blok’s factory and studio promote daily collaboration between the team on factory floor and the architects, creating a team environment unique to modular construction and a flow of information which informs both the design and construction processes.