Located in the iconic Sydney suburb of Bondi, Andrew Burges Architects have designed a stand-out property for client Will Dangar from landscape architecture practice Dangar Barin Smith.
Nominated for the much-anticipated Dezeen Awards 2020 in the house interior, residential rebirth and urban house categories, the key requirement for this Bondi holiday home was that it should stand out from the crowd. And that it truly does.
Old becomes new
Nestled on Bondi Road leading straight down to the world-famous beach, the architecture team at Andrew Burges decided to retain the front room and porch of the original structure, while demolishing the remainder of the building to make space for the new. However, in what can be seen as a homage to the existing home as well as a strategy to minimise building waste, the original bricks from the demolished section of the house were cleaned and reused to construct the new.
The upper floor additionally features a perforated aluminium screen, which not only allows this space to stand out from the brick ground-floor structure, but provides shading for the bedrooms enveloped within.
A continuous garden
As this project was designed for a local landscape architect, the new home naturally incorporates the outdoors in its design. The architecture studio played with the idea of a continuous garden, which would maximise the available space, and create a rather fluid thoroughfare between the interior and the exterior living spaces.
The ground floor spills out of the four walls of the interior home, incorporating also the courtyard and garden areas beyond. Glazing allows for visual continuity throughout the space, while concrete and steel building elements reinforce the idea of the outdoors. The upper floors have a rather softer feel, with proyalbi plaster applied to the floors and ceilings, creating a calm environment while still paying tribute to natural materials.
