Bay View House

Our clients desired an emphatic relationship with the unique characteristics of their site overlooking the natural heritage of Bay View Park and river activity beyond. The design philosophy seeks to generate architectural forms and volumes that engage harmoniously with its site context; interacting with the immediate vicinity of the streetscape and broadly with the adjacent bush trail park.

Rigorous planning and design provided simplicity and clarity of spaces whilst addressing the project brief, developing a building form that is sympathetic to the streetscape and understating its actual scale. An aluminium box form appears to perch gracefully on a sculptured column that mimics tree forms of the park. The upper floor concrete balustrade (which offers privacy upstairs) gently unfurls to define the outdoor living and continues deep into the home, in a strategy to draw the exterior to its interior. This fluid form offers occupants a softened outlook of warm, organic textures, evoking the limestone caves and outcrops on the cliffs beyond, further enhanced in the evening by the warm and soft qualities of artificial lighting. Moveable slimline glazing frames provide virtually unobstructed views.

The ground floor of this family home accommodates open plan living, dining and kitchen that diffuse into external gardens and courtyards with primary outlooks towards the parkland and river. The upper level with secondary bedrooms for children and guests, main bedroom, ensuite and dressing continue to address the site, with outlooks strategically framed, and apertures that invite quality sun and breeze.

The cool crisp edges of feature metal cladding and screens are often counteracted with warm timber cladding and limestone tiling. The exterior material palettes are carried into the inside in a controlled manner, with their soft light tones diffusing natural light deep within the interiors. The organic language of the street elevation was also carried through into various elements of the interior detailing, providing a soft juxtaposition against the typically linear and occasionally angular planes.

A passion for quality workmanship and design was paramount for our clients, creating ongoing challenges to a controlled budget, with the results being clients reinforced by their values for quality design.

- Sustainability -
Consideration for environmental comfort within the home extended beyond designing architectural forms and elements in order to address orientation and climate control.
The project brief was developed in conjunction with the client’s desires, appraising the client of all ESD opportunities and the broader benefits of taking such actions.

Site studies were carried out to observe the optimum passive design opportunities, with consideration to prevailing winds and solar access. Planning gave valuable consideration to the fundamental passive solar design principles, further strengthened by maximizing natural light and ventilation throughout all spaces within the home, thus vastly minimizing the dependence on energy demanding artificial lighting and mechanical climate control. Part of the client brief also highlighted the desire for spaces with the ability to open out completely towards the environment (i.e. no flyscreens) with shelter from the harsh sun and rain. This allowed the occupants to connect to the external environment in a meaningful manner.

These ideals were enriched via the installation of hydronic floor heating, together with a grey water treatment system providing scheme and grey water servicing the entirety of the gardens and verge. Double glazing was fitted to all windows and sliding doors adding further thermal value and non-mechanical climate control. Low VOC paints were specified both internally and externally. Forrest managed timber veneers were specified and incorporated within the cabinetry finishes. Low energy LED lighting was predominantly used throughout and sensor systems for operation. The feature aluminium horizontal interlocking cladding was recommended for the potential for a longer live, and capacity of reuse.

Australian Institute of Architects (WA) 2016 Award winner:
Residential Architecture - Houses (New) - Bay View House by CSA Craig Steere Architects Julius Elischer Award for Interior Architecture - Bay View House by CSA Craig Steere Architects.