Home is a Journey Ep 1 - Dune

I think good architecture has to incorporate this element of surprise as you walk through the home and it can't be all revealed to you from the entrance. This is Dune. It's a home we've recently completed that we designed for a couple who have been living on the site and it was their family home for over 35 years. City Beach is a beautiful coastal suburb of hearth and the clients just love going to the beach. The site was quite complex to begin with because it was really the pinnacle of the sand dune in this area. The topography across our site alone was about six metres and so we were confined by maximum height restrictions but we also wanted to make it feel natural within its environment. The lifestyle of our clients is one of very much entertaining. Their doors are always open, they love entertaining within their home and so we wanted to create that space for them where they could do that comfortably and so that was an important part of the design process. Once we've understood their lifestyle and what they want to gain from the site and in this case it was still living very much with those views so we knew straight from the beginning that we were designing a home that was reverse living so we could maximise those views. City Beach can be quite brutal so we create separate zonings for that so on those beautiful days that are still and we can really enjoy having doors open and being connected with the ocean, we have that front balcony for that but as soon as that sea breeze comes in we can migrate to the Alfresco area. The home's designed around a sort of a C-shape style of home where within the centre of that C is the Alfresco zone and so we're still outside, we're still enjoying it but we're nestled in behind the structure. I think what was a really important aspect of this project is the collaboration of all the minds involved and a really important consultant in that whole process is the landscape consultant and their landscape designers who assist us to then soften the home and let the home bed within its environment. This project in particular was quite interesting because it's nestled on the top of a sand dune, we had significant falls from the ground floor level to the kerb. The landscape had to form a significant part of retaining those areas. Within 18 months it's going to be amazing, we'll have you know a beautiful you know grass level area on the verge and we've got grass at the top and then the transition between the two is all native plants. Some really harsh salt winds that are coming in onto the landscape and onto the home so our plant selections have to be quite specific to be able to handle that. What stands out for me about this home is upon entrance you get that really relaxed feel, you can you sort of walk in and the first thing you see is this beautiful swim pool and rear yard and I think my favourite space, although the views from upstairs are magnificent, I really love that relaxed feel of the downstairs sitting room where you can open the doors up, spill out onto the pool zone. I think that could be a very special space down there you can sit back and read and relax. We're really proud of the home, we think that it's nestled into this sand dune really beautifully, it's surrounded by some beautiful landscape and the spaces just seem to work and that's what makes us proud to come back once we've completed the home.