Contemporary additions to a classic brick beach house in Little Cove, Noosa, Queensland

Our clients purchased a late 70’s brick beach house in Little Cove for a subtropical retreat from the cool southern climate. The house was located on a wonderful site that backed onto the Noosa national park and surfing beaches. The existing dark brown brick residence, although well constructed at the time, had visually dated quite badly and did not take the best advantage of the amazing site that backed onto a subtropical rainforest. The owners brief was to modernise the house while retaining as much of the existing building structure as possible.

One of the challenges with the existing house is that it did not take full advantage of the wonderful location backing onto the Noosa national park. The rear of the house was largely a solid brick wall looking onto this beautiful view. We proposed carving out a series of new openings in the rear wall so that bedrooms and bathrooms would look out onto this very private serene landscape. Originally the house was quite dark internally so we pushed a series of timber-lined light wells up through the roof. This allowed natural light to flow in from a high level, as well as from the new openings in the brick walls.

The other significant challenge to modernise the existing house was how to transform the front street elevation. The original house had an unflattering rough dark brown brick facade with two equally mission brown garage roller doors. A separate consideration was that the street elevation faced east and hot morning sun would blast in through the kitchen and dining windows in summer. Our approach was to render the brick in a natural cement finish and design a beautiful timber screen that sat in front of the original facade. This lightweight hardwood structure resulted in a refined modern elevation to the street, while also providing sun protection and privacy for the internal spaces.

One of the most unique and delightful design elements of the new house is the semi-outdoor bathrooms that look out onto the national park. The original house had an aged light brown plastic shower unit that sat on the back deck, where you could shower outside looking into the forest. The owners loved this feature, so we designed the new bathrooms as hardwood boxes with copper fittings that are largely open onto the private subtropical rainforest

Awards

• 2016 Australian Institute of Architects Queensland State Award
• 2016 Australian Institute of Architects Sunshine Coast Award
• 2016 Houses Award for Alterations & Additions over 200m²

Photography: Jared Fowler