Building Houses
Blues Point Hotel constructed under the project of Australian architectural studio «Carter Williamson Architects», gives possibility of fine rest on a stylish open terrace which not only creates cosy "jazz atmosphere" for the visitors, but also delicately cares about comfort of passers-by and inhabitants of the next houses.
Jazz Interior for Music Fans
On a terrace territory the pub and rest zone with convenient seats and the little tables located on perimetre of a high wall. This twisting architectural element provides good sound insulation and comfortable interior space.
Loud music, laughter, conversations — all sounds will remains in an institution, besides it, the clients, in turn, are protected from sounds of street life.
Visually, the modern twist of a wall partially correlates with Art Deco style in which the hotel is made. However this elegant interior with wooden structure is a fully resounded with a musical orientation of an hotel, having filled with rebellious and freedom-loving spirit.
Interior Decoration
Architectural paradise on Island Fiji
Here only two small houses — in one live visitors, and in other the restaurant settles down. From different directions they are surrounded by a tropical garden with strange flora. This place for those who has got tired of city noise and wishes to have a rest on a nature bosom. In hotel excellent conditions for residing, the hospitable personnel and magnificent service. The hotel is designed by the known Sydney architect, and uses especial popularity at rich tourists and celebrities.
Here will take care of that holiday was remembered for a long time. The hotel offers: a private beach with free umbrellas and chaise lounges, the diving centre, hire of kayaks, catamarans, boats, fishing.
In hotel only 2 numbers of category Suite located in the big bungalow. They spacious, are arranged with taste expensive furniture and issued in a national key. Here is: the conditioner with adjustment, radio, the TV, the safe, a minibar. In the big bathroom a bath and a shower, excellent the sanitary technician, to visitors towels, slippers, dressing gowns are offered, to an accessory to washing, the hair dryer. Residential architect Sydney — has made everything that you felt as much as possible comfortably and have remembered rest on paradise island Dolphin.
Tropical Paradise on Viti Levu, Fiji
Interior Decoration
Apparently, was outright got by pigeons-teroristy.
Also he has decided to revenge. In own way, ...interior decoration
Interior Decorating
Solid as a rock - A challenging section on Gunyah beach in Bundeena, forced Clinton Murray to rethink the vernacular (perhaps simple) Australian beach side house and create a resilient coastal retreat. Built to last forever.
via: Many thanks to Clinton Murray 
Overview
Huge boulders throughout the cliff side, would have made slapping a wooden prefab house on the top of the plot the easiest option. Choosing instead to hide the house well down the plot near the breaking shoreline, posed challenges, yet rewarded both the architect and owners with stunning results. It also appeased the planning officials and nearby residents.
"The linear site is divided midway by a massive rock face, defining two distinct levels. The natural, sheltered enclave at the base of the rock face is where we believed the building belonged."
Tucked into the hillside, the copper clad roof has set out to weather itself in the ocean green shade of the bay beyond, further minimising the impact of the building for neighbours above.
Combined with the weathered copper is the solid base of the house. The ground floor living structure, of textured off-form concrete made with horizontal board forms, gives the impression of weathered timber, which contrasts with the fresh browns of the Oregon sleeping quarters and gallery above.
Building on a series of staggered rock platforms, the logistics of site management for labour, plant & equipment was challenging. All materials had to be craned in or manhandled from the top of the site, or from the beach front below. The entry stairs and concrete bridges required innovative reinforcement and form work solutions to achieve both continuous spans and the appearance of thin concrete blades hovering above the site. These thin blades continue inside with kitchen bench tops and bathroom surfaces formed on site of ultra thin jet black concrete.
Layout
To reach the timber front door, you negotiate the rock face via timber steps that weave through the boulders. Crossing a bridge that leads to a discreet front door you push open an oversized panel to reveal the high stud gallery. Strategically orientated, the full height end window of the gallery frames a nearby palm. Everything is overscale, stretched vertically, to relate to the magnitude of the cliff face behind the building site. Here, the reused Oregon timber stands vertical, allowing the seams to disguise two door panels, behind which hide two of the three master bedrooms. Each with, en-suite, balconies and outstanding views across the bay.
Heading down the hillside, you arrive at the main living quarters, housed in that heavy masonry base of textured off-form concrete. As with the rest of the house, glass front windows bathe the room with light, yet here, in contrast, the kitchen area to the rear and cubbyhole rooms, are lined with dark black concrete floors and bench tops. The darkness providing refuge from the summer heat, and mimic the caves often found tucked into cliffs around the Australian coast.
Also taking notes from nature the orientation of each level shifts as you rise up the cliff face. Thus forming fronds like the nearby palms, and allowing the building to sit back, minimising it's visual impact from the shoreline.
Results
"The house sits with its toes touching the sea and with an exposed worn rock face at its back, both constant reminders of the power of wild storms blowing in from the north-east. And should the big seas come, this house is a safe haven, no question about it."
Slideshow
Architect Clinton Murray
Project team Polly Harbison (Project Architect), Tanja Klocker, Jeff Umansky
Project Gunyah Beach House
Location Bundeena, New South Wales
Google Location
Builder Bellavarde Constructions
Structural Engineer O’Hearn Consulting
Landscape Architect 360 degrees
Photographer Simon Kenny
Plans
Interior Decorating
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Island retreat - The team at Arkhefield bring us one of their latest residential wonders in form of a simple, low maintenance, sustainable living volume which can be enjoyed all year round. The motives behind the design - maximising space and privacy - are attacked head on, as are the isolation and harsh climatic conditions on the island with basic low maintenance materials. The resulting simplistic structure, appears as a coastal tree, with its roof-line shaped by the strong winds and elements. Elements from which it can hunker down further, shelter, isolate and reorientate the use of external spaces.
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Overview
The house offers a stark contrast to the predominant low shacks by the way that it expresses and celebrates volume, simplicity of form and its ability to manage/manipulate the external environment. The house appears to be inspirational amongst the community with many new houses currently under construction on the island being designed and sited in a similar manner. .jpg)
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The house is a simple extruded profile with its form being solely dictated by town planning constraints. Height, setback and roof pitch essentially created the volumetric section which was extruded to the road and waterfront boundary, then set back to maximize the enclosed space. The house breaks out onto the terraced waterfront on the east, for summer fun and to an enclosed "winter courtyard" on the west. The relatively closed north and south façades retain privacy from the adjacent blocks, and shelter from strong summer sun. .jpg)
Design
The isolation of the site put a premium on the construction cost as all materials and skilled labour had to be barged out to the island. These constraints created unique challenges and encouraged a rethink to heavy/bulky build elements that couldn't be barged out to the site. Environmentally Sustainable Design principles of orientation and sitting along with use of solar, gas, rainwater harvesting, bamboo cladding/screening and a thermally efficient monolithic floor slab were all core ideas behind the build..jpg)
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Layout
The house is split in half down the centre of its length with a large double volume "communal" living space on the north and a 2 level "private" core, comprising of bedrooms and service zones, on the south. The interplay between the two halves of the house creates a sense of inclusion and encourages interaction between family and guests whilst still enabling privacy and seclusion.
Our clients desire to recreate a "Bahaman" styled beach cottage with shingled, pitched, roof and quaint shuttered windows made for a challenging brief. They wanted the house to take them back to the memorable vacations they had spent in exotic locations. Through exploration and development it became evident that decoration and themed architecture may enable brief relapses into the bygone but that intelligent design and the creation of flexible spaces stimulated communal interaction, which was what really recreated that relaxed holiday atmosphere they were seeking. They are extremely happy and are enjoying there "Contemporary Bahaman" cottage which they have aptly named "the shed" out on Stradbrooke Island.
Results
The team at Arkhefield have managed to strip back this brief to the real essence of what the client was after. Conviviality and family togetherness were the clients true request and the flexibility of the hoses and its communal spaces are what makes the house such a wonderful island retreat.
Plans
Architect: Arkhefield [AF employees] - Director, Andrew Gutteridge
Project/Design Architect: Simon Wynn
Project Team: Justin Boland, Julie Tomaszewski
Building Surveyor: Bennett & Francis
Construction completed: July 2006
Hydraulic: BRW Enterprises
Interior Designer: Arkhefield
Landscape: JW Concepts
Lighting: Arkhefield
Structural: McVeigh Consulting Engineers / Steel House Frames Australia
Structure and Frame: Steel House Frames Australia
Builder: Clarke Construction (Kelwyn Cassidy, Steven Parker)
Gross floor area: 355 m2
Project cost per square metre: Client wishes this to be kept confidential
Photography: Scott Burrows
via: Arkhefield
Interior Decorating
Thinking Globally | Acting Locally - Nicholas Burns has taken this "green" addage and designed a modern residential retreat that: incorporates international ideas, templates low impact construction, has relatively minimal impact on the environment and embraces this spectacular plot.
The Johanna residence sits a few kilometres off the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia, up a bush track leading to a gravel turnaround. This porous parking area is the first step into Nicholas's realm of environmentally concious design, allowing the water to soak through in a semi un-constructed area, combats erosion far better than a concrete slab.
Constructed of rammed earth taken in part from the surrounding area the house self regulates in temperature for all but the coldest of days. A super insulated wood burning fire in the centre of the living area tops up on the few days that it is required, whilst for most of the year the 300mm walls and thick floor store daytime heat for night time release. Carefully judged overhangs and windows, shade the rooms from peak summer heat, and allow cooling air to pass.
Arriving at the house you play out a mini script that depicts the notion of a holiday home. A getaway, a release from the constrictive day-to-day life we lead in the city.
Leaving your car you head towards a strong rear wall. From this angle the house appears a small bank or cliff, solid and permanent, with stripes of layers in the rammed earth walls creating cliff like strata. Nearing the house, a courtyard leads you in to a "Burns" play on space and dimensions.
As if entering a cinema through the back corridor, the short courtyard, with its imposing 300mm thick rammed earth walls, contracts to a single passageway and heads to the front door.
The constricting nature of the entrance has you prepared to duck your head and don a helmet and caving lamp. Yet as you pass the front door and round the partitioning wall, you're released into a panorama of views out across Johanna beach and along the coastline. About ten minutes later, you'll realise you're in a wonderful open plan living / dining room.
Nicholas Burns has an affinity for the architecture of Tadao Ando, which he studied for years, admiring as I do, his self taught designs.
Hidden in full view throughout the design of this residence are homages to Ando. Tadao's designs, based of the Tatami mat, 900mm x 1800mm, are all divisible by this measure, leading to a hidden, calming simplicity. Nicholas's dimension is 600mm "so everything has an inherent logic in the space, making it unobtrusive.” Simply furnished, the house allows you to focus on it's surrounds.
Layout
A slight twist on a single plane design, the two bedroom wings are set back from the living area to allow 180 degree views. This also allows a raised courtyard to be placed behind the living area. A sheltered area from winds heading up hillside, it also provides an area for BBQs and outdoor dining.
All but one of the four bedrooms soak in the views and sunsets, the fourth, a more reserved room, is windowed to the rear and surrounding bush, an ideal room for private contemplation.
Plan
About Nicholas Burns
In the 1990s, Burns left his architecture studies in South Australia to pursue a self-education in philosophy and building crafts, a la Tadao Ando. In 2000, he moved to Singapore, where he is still based, travelling from there through Europe, India, China, South-East Asia and Japan. I think Nicholas's practice really focuses on balancing the three way split, design, clients desires and the environment in which the build sits.
As part of all initial concepts and drafts, Nicholas's practice now encourages all of their clients to offset the carbon footprint of the build with United Nations-Certified carbon credits.
The environment is a strong stakeholder. But as you can see, in no way at the expense of fantastic design.
via: Nicholas Burns
Related Articles: http://materialicio.us/2008/01/15/johana-beach-house-nicholas-burns/
http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums//showthread.php?t=5990
House Construction
Wolveridge Architects bring us a unique modern bach for a retired couple, that proves modern design can accommodate all a client's needs without compromising on style.
After removing the existing house the basin like nature of seaside plot was revealed. Setting out, the idea of security and privacy was achieved through two monolithic structures at the rear of the house. The solid black wooden garage and rusting steel box, materials chosen for longevity in these conditions, face the street corner. Windowless on 3 sides, these boxes act as guards to the main door, the entrance to the contrasting open plan rear of the house.
As requested, the grandchildren have been given their own play area, the tall steel box at the entrance of the residence.
At the opposite end of the house, the master wing, separate for the main living area is a quiet retreat, with the lap pool along it's length. The master bathtub, focal point at the end of the main corridor, can be closed off on weekends when the couple aren't alone.
Between the two wings lies the third and fourth bedrooms, kitchen and main living area. The open plan living area, is a breeze space that opens onto a large deck with lap pool to left and protecting fireplace and BBQ wall to the right. This acts as a buffer/ interim space in the all important indoor - outdoor flow.
A lesson from this house, is how the architects have used glass sparingly. Heading from south-west to north-east and the rear of the section, the house opens up to the sun. The living area, used all day, has large northerly windows. The bedrooms and bathrooms used at night, have narrow glazed apertures, yet seem light and airy as white enamel paint reflects the light throughout.
This finishes off a house of contrasts: from dark wooden exterior panels to the light white interior, steel and wood entrance guards, fire and water separated by the deck, and the night and day segments of this fantastic house.
Architect: Wolveridge Architects Pty Ltd
Project Name: Sorrento House
Location: Sorrento 3943
Gross floor area: 330m2
Site area: 850m2
via: Wolveridge Architects Pty Ltd
House Construction
Shaun Lockyer (one of 3 Directors) heading the team at Arkhefield created a unique solution in a very urban, riverside plot. Overlooked to the east, the house looks for winter warmth from the north and west whilst trying to take in southern river views.
A private garden to the west provides light, a play area for children and a fire pit for relaxing around in the evening.
The house combines zinc aluminium, concrete, rich timbers and raw battening as the house moves from secure bedrooms on the easterly spine towards the more open living rooms of the setting sun. Centre piece of the property is the cantilevered pool, providing an eave for the main entrance with its showpiece, glass end.
It’s not all show either. Complementing its modern style and perhaps Gehry-esque (without comparison or wanting to offend) zinc curves, the house packs in green features as well.
Rain water harvesting, solar hot water, passive “heat stack” cross ventilation (see the stairwell ventilation and light shaft on the easterly wall), solar control glass, operable louvers, shutters and blinds on solar clocks to limit use of air-conditioning, thermal mass and low maintenance, recycled, materials were all a consideration.
From its solid east wall spine, the house peels back layers to the south west. In response and consultation with its neighbor, an open “garden zone” provides green to the otherwise built up environs. It may seem large, but within the broader higher density context of its surroundings it fits well and as the layers peel back the living areas and outdoor dining provide protection from the elements, views and cross ventilation.
The layout also provides: a secure 4 bedroom stack for the children above the garage at the northern end, leaving the southern end for entertaining, living and on the top floor a master wing. The first floor level accommodates the bulk of living needs including the outdoor living and pool.
When viewed from the riverside path the house's size befits the surrounding multi residential buildings. Elevated living areas take in the views and the lightening of construction materials can be seen from east to west.
The huge picture window and feature flueless fire are fantastic.
“Our client wanted a unique piece of architecture that could enhance family life and not be precious. Feedback from the client is that the house has achieved this aspiration while providing privacy and sanctuary from the otherwise urban and public environment.”
Definitely!
Images and information via: Arkhefield. Greatly appreciated!
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