When purchasing an existing 1960’s brick house just up the hill from South Cottesloe beach, our clients knew that they wanted to renovate rather than demolish and start again. This strategy was pragmatic, as construction costs were reduced, and sustainable, with existing floors and structural walls retained instead of demolished. Our challenge was to transform the house, creating a three-storey contemporary coastal home on the bones of a tired beige brick ‘renovators delight’.

In stripping back layers and revealing the house’s fundamental split-level planning, we retained an existing side entry sequence that brought visitors almost to the centre of the house before entering a central hallway around which rooms are arranged on a series of levels. A series of large skylights that start at the covered entry, and then meander through the house, provide a guiding light that pulls visitors through the house towards a large covered external area accessed from the kitchen and family rooms. This al fresco space is the culmination of the staggered spatial sequence that unfolds from street to rear garden, all the while lit from above and connected to the garden. House zoning is largely created in section, with a sunken garage over a slightly raised living and dining area, a main level of family spaces, and a new floor over with kids’ bedrooms and bathrooms.

Built on a long, narrow north-south lot, the house now opens towards small gardens along its length and to the rear, achieving maximum natural light and ventilation where it was previously dark and inward facing. In the place of a previous tiled roof, a series of shifting roof planes float over the house, gathering up the house and landscape within a matt grey cladding that contrasts with bagged brick walls and granite paving.

Responding to our clients’ love of mid-century modern architecture, the new interior material palette is defined by soft white walls and spotted gum timber floors, ceilings, and cabinetry.

Located in a street that is slowly being transformed by medium-density infill developments, the house maintains privacy to the street through a series of sliding timber screens that also control northern sunlight.