Bellows House

Winner of the Residential Design Award in the Australian Interior Design Awards 2021

Silver Winner of the International Category for the Brick in Architecture Awards 2021

A single row of mature poplar trees alongside an unsealed road cast shadows onto the white concrete masonry blocks in the morning, animating the long articulated façade. The articulations, through the masonry and concrete detailing, together with the frustum roofs and layering of spaces, evoke street engagements and curiosities. Once inside the house, the 2 largest of the frustum roofs reveal their internal structure: reverse step concrete pyramids. At the onset of the project, the decision was made to design a house that was permanent. Anchoring the house in the sands instead of using typical lightweight beach vernacular created more of a bunker than a shack. While this house doesn’t have spectacular clifftop views of the ocean, its flat, inland location prompted a response of a place marker, which the locals now affectionately refer to as the “Pyramids of Flinders”.

Photography: Derek Swalwell