Barefoot brilliance
Big ideas transformed this Perth home into a light and highly adaptable beachside masterpiece.
Summing up the design of this luxurious yet laidback home in a beachside suburb of Perth, architect Megan Cordin of MJA Studio simply says “this is salt-in-your-hair, sand-inyour-toes architecture”. With white sands and aquamarine waters just a stone’s throw away, sea and surf are constant companions for the homeowners, Mary and Phil, and their three teenage children.
It’s a dramatic departure from the property the couple bought in 2012. “The house was next to the beach, had a large front yard for the kids and development potential,” says Mary. But its virtues halted there. The unusual Hamptons-meets-Tuscan home had been randomly added to over the years and wasted its dreamy location. The floor plan itself was tangled, lacked flow and felt shut off from the garden.
Mary and Phil engaged Megan to design a new home in 2016. The only option was to bring in the bulldozers and start afresh, in a two-year build by Valento Residences. “Our brief was to create a four-bedroom family home with voluminous open-plan living areas bathed in natural light,” says Megan. “Blurring the boundary between inside and out was important too.”
The new house also had to provide generous common areas for the family to come together and entertain friends, along with break-out areas for quieter moments.
“We wanted fuss-free living, including a pool house for the teenagers to have their own space, a basement to contain all our ‘toys’, and an outdoor shower to manage sandy feet,” says Mary.
Beach traffic would influence the materials throughout. “The finishes needed to be beautiful yet practical for a coastal lifestyle,” says Megan. “Salt and sand would be ever-present, so I chose hardy materials for both their textural qualities and character.”
Drawing inspiration from Mid-Century Modern architecture, especially the iconic homes in Palm Springs, California, and those by Brazilian architects Marcio Kogan and Oscar Nie meyer, Meg an created a light-soaked home that touches the ground lightly. The property is perched on former dunes, and that rolling site proved an asset. “Its verticality enabled us to use existing ground levels to form a family zone, and tuck the garage, a storage area and cellar underneath,” she says. “The main living zone became a balcony to the street.”
Thanks to moveable walls of glass, the communal open-plan space on the ground floor practically extends from the front of the house to the back of the site – from the living room via the kitchen/dining area, through the pool area and into a pool house at the rear.
The house can be closed off according to the time of day, the weather and the mood of its occupants. Large sashless sliding windows provide a strong visual link to the street and front garden. But, for privacy and protection, aluminium blinds can close this connection, instantly switching the living areas to bunker mode.
The home presents as a series of boxes staggered across the site, creating an interplay of horizontal and vertical forms and ensuring separation between zones.
A floating box housing the children’s bedrooms – the parents’ bedroom is downstairs, to the right of the entry – extends from above the family space and out over the pool. Timber-look screens wrap the structure and provide protection from sunlight while allowing the air to circulate. And that enclosure around the pool provides shelter from offshore winds.
The finishes were chosen for their longevity as well as their beauty, says Megan. “We wanted the whole house to read together, so interior and exterior materials work in harmony. To create the flow from interior and exterior spaces, we needed them to be seen as the same thing – it’s a house turned inside out.”
Throughout, there is an interplay of light and heavy materials, plain and patterned, especially board-form concrete and stone, juxtaposed with timber. “The board-form concrete allowed us to use a hard-wearing and raw material, yet create detailing and interest,” says Megan. “The patterned concrete, as well as the natural stone, offsets the sharp line and volume created by matt-black cabinetry and expansive glass.”
Furnishings, meanwhile, are simple and low-key, letting the architecture do the talking, which it does so eloquently. “I love the weightlessness you feel in the house,” says Megan. “The living zone floats above the street, and the light and space flowing through into the back garden and to the pool house create an expansive indoor-outdoor experience. I love the way concrete and timber work together and take their cues from one another. This is a house that feels calm but never precious.” # MJA Studio, Subiaco, WA; mjastudio.net. Valento Residences, Leederville, WA; valento.com.au.
“I LOVE THE WAY CONCRETE AND TIMBER TAKE THEIR CUES FROM EACH OTHER.” Megan Cordin, architect