The site fronts a harbour beach on Pittwater in Sydney's northern Beaches and has it's entry and garages on a quiet Palm Beach street. The street has been significantly developed in recent years, the small, modest fishermans cottages being replaced by large houses all built on relatively small blocks in close proximity to each other. The front, facing the beach is oriented south west, directly into the south westerly weather fronts that have a significant run up across the expanse of Pittwater. The outlook across Pittwater is to National Park.

The brief was to convert three apartments in two existing buildings into one family house that included a private area for the adults and a work space to allow them to work from home. Two fundamental spatial requirements were to activate a private outdoor courtyard room, enclosed by the two existing buildings on the site, and to protect the inhabitants from the view of people using the beach the house directly fronts.

The existing building was a 1950's brick block with little or no consideration for the site and climate it was built in. A decision was made early in the project to retain the existing building mass and work within its spatial framework as opposed to demolishing and starting again. This was an important design decision as we felt that the site needed to be dealt with delicately as it is in a very sensitive geographical and environmental location. By keeping the existing building the embodied energy and environmental impact of the building was kept to a minimum. This allowed us to adapt the house to a sustainable future by engaging the thermal mass and utilise cross ventilation and heat stack effects to control heat. Underground water storage and natural filtration systems were installed to use collected roof water for laundry, bathroom, garden and drinking needs.

The architecture has been expressed as a series of finely crafted, space making furniture pieces that have been inserted into and grafted onto the fabric of the existing building. The window boxes in the living room and bedrooms puncture the envelope of the brick skin and create a new seat or table whilst providing protection from the sun and wind. The windows slide over the external elevation so that they disappear when viewed from the inside. The solid timber window reveals have been carefully placed to frame the views across the water to the National Park. The new sunroom and north western wall that contains the staircase have been wrapped around the brick mass. The north western wall uses a stack effect to passively cool the rest of the house, Warm air is collected in the stairwell and released through the thermostatically controlled louvers, this in turn draws cooler air through the rest of the house from vents in the roof and walls. In the colder months the warm air is stored in the stairwell and then distributed around the house by fans.

Timber framing: Recycled iron bark
Decks + Balconies: Recycled iron bark
Window and door joinery: Recycled spotted gum finished with Livos oil
Glazing: Pilkington Evergreen glass
Floors: Recycled blackbutt with Livos Ardvos floor oil
Roof: Copper flat sheet with astrofoil insulation
Cladding: Ecoply

Consultants
Lighting: Mindseye 3d Lighting Design
Engineer: Tinslay Consulting Engineers
Landscaping: Jan Felton + Gary Hastie
Recycled Timber Joinery: Jeffrey Broadfield + Associates
Photography: Kilian O'Sullivan, Light Room Architectural Photography