The Watering Hole

Who can resist the magnetic pull of their local surf life saving club – especially when it is this beautiful?

Point Lonsdale Surf Life Saving Club, Victoria by Jackson Clements Burrows Architects Words Stephen Crafti Photography Tom Hunt-Smith

As one of the largest surf lifesaving clubs in Victoria, the Point Lonsdale club was certainly lacking in amenities. On a prominent corner site (Buckleys and Ocean roads) at the foot of the sand dunes, the club simply expanded as more space was required. Starting from the original club house built in the 1960s, there was a series of ad hoc additions over time. “The club (the client was the Point Lonsdale Surf Life Saving Club) was looking for a building that would service the entire community, a beacon for events,” says architect Graham Burrows, director of Jackson Clements Burrows Architects (JCBA), who worked closely with architect Veryan Curnow, an associate director of the practice. “The former arrangement also didn’t respond to the site, both to the road and neighbouring residents,” says Curnow.

Rather than place the new club perpendicular to the roads, as was the case in the former arrangement, the new two-storey timber building is triangular in shape and spreads diagonally across the site to maximise both the lawned area and views of the gnarled coastal tea-trees and dunes. While this development doesn’t have a view of the Heads and Bass Strait, it’s only a short walk up and across the sand dune to reach the smaller building at the water’s edge (designed a few decades ago).

There are generous verandas and decks on both levels that function as viewing platforms over the lawn. “The outdoor spaces were designed to allow for food trucks to enter the property, while the verandas allow for parents to keep an eye on their children playing below,” says Burrows, who was keen for JCBA’s design to be as permeable as possible. So, while there’s a timber-battened fence along Ocean Road, this same elevation includes a canteen on the corner with windows servicing those using the lawn area as well as locals simply passing by. And rather than the usual hard paving/ footpaths, there’s a continuous garden strip on the edges, complete with a timber bench.