Architect Britta Klingspohn uses unexpected words when explaining why the wood-clad house she - and Open Studio practice partner Heribert Alucha - designed to settle into the sand dunes at Somers is so much leaner than the failing holiday house it replaced on a sea-fronting block.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"Instead of taking the whole width of the block we took into account sharing of neighbourhood views and allowing sight lines towards the beach when looking down from the street," Klingspohn says.
"We made it quite a skinny building that was more polite to the street."
In a house that eventually could become permanent digs for the clients, the aim was a comfortable, quiet building with an upstairs living room to make the most of the views of Bass Strait and Phillip Island to the south. Three bedrooms, two in a guest wing and the main, would be downstairs in the sandy dimension.
What the clients were hoping for was something stylistically between a shack and a suburban house, without being either.
"It had to be practical enough to function well, flexible for when family and friends visit, but also to be simple, to have less stuff than a suburban house. It has no grand entrance. You enter from the side after going through the garden," Klingspohn says.
"In a pocket of Somers that still has lots of native vegetation, it was important to have no hard fences and no hard things. The site is amazing. So low-key that it still has that '50s feeling."
Conceding to many vegetation and floodplain overlays, the house does crank out by a metre towards its beach frontage to give the living room and angled front deck more scope, "and to make it different from being just a box". It displays the sophisticated but unfussy design insignia of two architects who were trained in Europe.
- Related: A Japanese-inspired renovation
- Related: Don't overlook this area of your home
- Related: The holiday home that comes with its own jetty
There are lots of subtle recesses, low-key materials and colours that fit into the landscape.
Although well-insulated, the main materials are non-showy and economic, which is another large part of the cohesion of building to setting.
"Where we spent the money was on the custom-made double glazing. We paid a lot of attention to the glazing to make the windows extremely tight. Everything else was very simple."
The other word Klingspohn chooses to define the Somers build is "peaceful - really peaceful".
