Florida Beach Residence, Western Australia Property, Perth Home Design Image

Florida Beach House near Perth

Dawesville House, Western Australia Residence design by Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects

new larger photos added to this page 15 Jun 2014

Florida Beach Residence

Location: Florida Beach, near Perth, Western Australia

Design: Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects

Contemporary Western Australia House

Photos © Peter Bennetts

Inhabiting two platforms – one flat and one undulating.

Located at Florida Beach, Western Australia, this design emphasises and focuses on the immense Indian Ocean. All space is aligned and extruded through a strict dialogue of plan and section revealing the intensity and variety of this great ocean in the Florida Beach House design.

This is a modern day holiday house only one hour from the capital of Western Australia and surrounded by the sprawling Perth suburbia. The architects were interested in the past and rapidly disappearing holiday homes that once dominated the nearby landscape, houses that embodied the weekender experience designed with restraint, economy and robustness.

This house captures these dying qualities while screening the occupants from the emerging suburban houses and protecting them from the strong winds and storms. A deck is created on each of the cardinal points allowing the occupants to live externally any time of the year.

The reference point for the design was found in a sketch by the great Danish architect Jorn Utzon, an image of people congregating on the beach under the dense, stormy Copenhagen sky. Uzton translated this in to the section of a church creating a mystical interior; the architects translated this in to the section of a holiday house that intensifies the experience of the ocean.

The section undulates in relationship to the plan form; each space includes an undulation that is eventually revealed at the beach side as a series of undulations connecting the living, dining and kitchen spaces to the dynamic ocean environment. The section extrudes from the beach end to the street side, those spaces that do not contain a direct view to the ocean maintain the memory of the ocean view through the continuing section.

External cladding is a strictly controlled ribbon of uncut compressed fibre cement sheeting and rough sawn plywood panels, the plywood inhabit the deck spaces and the CFC provides a durable exterior to storm exposed areas. This material restraint references the past holiday homes. While the exterior is tactile and articulated the interior is smooth and sculptured with subtle variations of white paint colour and gloss levels differentiating interior elements and reflecting the exterior.

A continuous band of high performance glass articulates the wall cladding from the roof, the roof overhang is carefully sized to exclude summer sun and admit low-level winter sun. The stretched western overhang excludes the low level sun allowing the occupants to engage in comfort with the setting sun.

The house appears to gently hover above the ground, a recessed concrete platform creates this illusion, the platform connects this house to the remaining holiday houses and the Dawesville Cut bridge, this is first platform that one passes and signifies the beginning of the holiday experience.

Constructed almost entirely of plantation pine timber, prefabricated and transported to Florida, the raw structure appeared like the carcass of a great whale. The use of steel is minimised to a few select areas where thin columns support the dense undulating roof creating tension in the context of the ocean view.

The hovering platform is finished with recycled Jarrah and continues between the interiors and exterior as one large plane, the holiday experience unfolds on this platform. Finished internally with Whittle Wax and externally with Sikkens oil, this platform will slowly reveal the marks of the beach and holiday lifestyle.

A native landscape garden surrounds this platform, carefully screening the surrounding suburban houses and providing an additional filter to the Western sun and Indian Ocean. The sound of the sea breeze transforms into an eerie whistle as it passes through the Casuarinas (Weeping Beach Sheoaks) reinforcing the complex, intense and delightful relationship to this environment creating a very West Australian experience.

iredale pedersen hook architects

Florida Beach House – Building Information

Project Title: Florida Beach House
Project Type: New House
Director in Charge: Adrian Iredale (Director in Charge)
Architectural Team: Jemma Vandongen (Project Architect, Contract Administration)
Finn Pedersen (Director), Martyn Hook (Director)
David Barr (Project Architect, Sketch Design & Documentation)
Giancarlo Belviso, Kylene Tan

Site area: 847 sqm
Gross Floor area: 520 sqm
Status: completed
Cost: private

Photographs: Peter Bennetts +61 412 568 181

Florida Beach House Western Australia images / information from Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects, 250811

Florida Beach Residence design : Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects

Location: Dongara Vista, Dawesville WA 6210, Florida Beach, Western Australia

Australian Houses