Project: The Block House ft. Austral Masonry
With views over Broken Bay, ready access to wetlands and bush walks, rainforest and the Hawkesbury, it’s little wonder that this idyllic spot attracts a large weekender population.
The owners of this stunning and imaginative house retained their previous holiday home, a duplex shared with another family, built just a few doors away in 1992. The new and the old homes share three characteristics: location (both have absolute beach frontage), designer (Porebski Architects), and walling material (concrete masonry).
“The client liked the concrete block from his previous house so much that there wasn’t a question of not using it again,” says Alex Porebski. His father, Andre Porebski (who designed the original house) and Caomhán Murphy were the project architects, with Murphy also handling site works.Andre’s daughter,Victoria D’Alisa, is the practice’s interior designer.
The saline environment and windborne sand were another factor in choosing to once again specify concrete masonry which is highly resistant to abrasion and attack by moist, salt-laden air. And face blockwork, both internally and externally, doesn’t require expensive finishes such as paint to maintain its durability. As well as being high in embodied energy, painted finishes must be reapplied frequently in this demanding environment.
The house is set over two principle living levels, with a large courtyard and living spaces on the ground floor, and three bedrooms and a study in an L-shaped arrangement above, following the southwestern side boundary.
For the architects, the major challenge was to protect the residents against the daily onshore winds that make an opening to the south-eastern beachfront all but unusable every afternoon. Their solution was a central courtyard protected by operable screens and windows against the prevailing winds.
The owners of this stunning and imaginative house retained their previous holiday home, a duplex shared with another family, built just a few doors away in 1992. The new and the old homes share three characteristics: location (both have absolute beach frontage), designer (Porebski Architects), and walling material (concrete masonry).
“The client liked the concrete block from his previous house so much that there wasn’t a question of not using it again,” says Alex Porebski. His father, Andre Porebski (who designed the original house) and Caomhán Murphy were the project architects, with Murphy also handling site works.Andre’s daughter,Victoria D’Alisa, is the practice’s interior designer.
The saline environment and windborne sand were another factor in choosing to once again specify concrete masonry which is highly resistant to abrasion and attack by moist, salt-laden air. And face blockwork, both internally and externally, doesn’t require expensive finishes such as paint to maintain its durability. As well as being high in embodied energy, painted finishes must be reapplied frequently in this demanding environment.
The house is set over two principle living levels, with a large courtyard and living spaces on the ground floor, and three bedrooms and a study in an L-shaped arrangement above, following the southwestern side boundary.
For the architects, the major challenge was to protect the residents against the daily onshore winds that make an opening to the south-eastern beachfront all but unusable every afternoon. Their solution was a central courtyard protected by operable screens and windows against the prevailing winds.
