Text description provided by the architects. Long Reef House is an architectural exercise in reinvention. A complete re-crafting of the interior and a subtle shift in planning have resulted in a profound transformation of the experience of the home. All this is in spite of the fact that there is no more home than what we began with, and all domestic functions are roughly in the same location. The house is a ghost in the shell of the original. The result is a much stronger connection to the garden, a stronger connection to the ocean and headland, and a natural flow through the interior spaces. There’s a careful balance between the big views and garden vistas, and the material palette, which is on the neutral side, to avoid causing distraction. Beneath these bigger moves, there’s sophistication and richness in the detail and crafting of materials and junctions. So, the interior continues to give visual value long after the ocean views have faded.
The existing site comprised an oversized house that was out of scale and proportion with itself and the surrounding context. Without adding or diminishing the existing floor space, the house has grown in character through a series of layered expressions and architectural detailing. A reshuffle of the program splits the home horizontally to create a garden level comprising casual living and kids' bedrooms and an upper level for living and dining with parents' retreat. This arrangement responds directly to the brief for a modern family’s needs and encapsulates the spectacular outlook of Long Reef Headland. Apart from reproportioning and clearing out small dark interior rooms, the stairs became a key design element. Aligned with the entry door, the stair sits positioned at the back of the house, drawing you in and up. As you ascend, you are pulled outside into the garden and up to the light-filled interior of open-plan living. Arranged and aligned diagonally with the headland view, you feel as though the ocean rolls up to the balcony edge.
Subtlety imbues the architecture throughout, with gentle level transitions, linking spaces, compression, and heaviness of the concrete lower level, complimenting the lifted light upper level to the detailing of the façade and interior. Externally, the new façade plays its role in grounding the building by responding to the streetscape at the front and engaging with the garden at the rear.
The previous street façade was bulky in scale and adorned with distracting geometries. Stripping these elements back meant we were able to reimagine the façade into sliding horizontal planes. A new concrete beam spans the full width of the frontage, acting as the organizing line. This line pulls the bulk down and rebalances the visual scale of the house to relate better with the immediate neighbor and surroundings. A new entry garden sits beneath the concrete frame, open to the sky, allowing in light and creating privacy. On the first-floor level, an external veranda box is wrapped in a perforated timber screen, protecting the dining space from the western sun and allowing the owners to choose their level of privacy.
Discrete and protective to the front, the rear opens up with expansive glazing and exterior balconies connecting to the outside. Two external balconies are stacked one above the other, with the stair creating a double-height vertical slot to balance the composition. Both balconies step down from inside to out to open up and allow the interior spaces to be free of visual clutter, allowing the view in.
A material palette of off-form concrete and render was chosen to suit the harsh coastal location with selective use of recycled hardwood timber for doors and ventilation panels. The materials are composed in a way to further enhance the tactility of the house. Rough render is used en masse as a way to soften the building – by creating texture, we create shadow, thus softening the way the light reacts and how you read the wall. Smooth render detailing is applied to form openings and to scale the window up on the outside. Each window breaks down with fixed glass to suit the scale of the interior space behind, accompanied by a simple timber panel for ventilation. The roof is left to be quiet and unassuming, with the deep eave creating a consistent datum.
Internally warm timber cladding and detailing balance out the hard concrete and render surfaces to make the space a home. Through careful detailing, the inside and outside merge seamlessly. The house is sophisticated yet relaxed, aligning with the client’s lifestyle and appropriate with its context.
