Fairhaven Beach House
This nimble beach house enjoys panoramic views over the southern ocean and surf beach.
Located on top of the ridgeline above the Great Ocean Road on the Victorian coastline, the proportions, orientation and dimensions of windows are tailored to particular views and to reveal internal spaces.
Our design process is akin to scenography, cutting together sensory and spatial experiences to frame the theatre of inhabitation within. The spatial journey through the house from arrival to view is choreographed to increase anticipation before reaching the main living space. As you step beneath a cantilevered study into a dramatic vertical entry space, you become acutely aware of a number of twists and folds along its length that make the transformation into horizontal living space. The main window aperture matches the cinematic proportions of the ocean view.
- Traditional Custodians Eastern Maar people of the Kulin Nation
- Location Fairhaven VIC
- Procurement Private commission
- Year 2007–2012
- Sustainability 6 Star (Residential)
- Levels 3 floors
- Site area 1,464m2
- Floor area 430m2
- Selected awards
- Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture—Houses, AIA National Architecture Awards, 2013
- New Award for Residential Architecture, AIA Victorian Architecture Awards, 2013
This house inhabits its coastal bush site with energy. It is active, responsive, charged architecture, almost bird-like, craning its neck to see over the edge, twisting its head to see the best views, scraping a nest among the trees.
Jury Citation – Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture (Houses)
Set high up overlooking Bass Strait, this house belies belief in its pursuit of a sublime aesthetic in architecture.
Jury Citation – New Award for Residential Architecture
Lined with one material - timber - the house's richly sculptural interior is an uncompromising commitment to spatial flow.
Jury Citation – Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture (Houses)
Each plate setting is incised into the surface and a felt place matt inserted. An open tray and bowl carved from the same timber are inset into the table’s surface.
Constructed from solid Victorian Ash, the dining table's sixteen timber sections create both the structure and the dining surface.
