Coogee House

I see the house as a good and sustainable model for suburban living. But it’s a real house with real neighbours in a real suburb not an abstract architectural proposition. We contribute as a small community to the overall amenity of the area. Street plantings, and furniture encourage interaction and activity. The carport, the footpath and the street often become the setting for public events. The car is accommodated but we struggle as a collective to restrict its flow and speed.

The house itself responds to the neighborhood by keeping the existing patterns of use intact, its look, feel and resolution augment and reinforce the setting where small interventions like public benches and plantings provide shelter and shade, colour and texture at the street frontage. Importantly it is not cut off from the street behind walls or gates, it is open and welcoming. Here security is a shared concern and tolerance of passers by in the busy neighborhood is tolerated and absorbed. 

The most significant problem to overcome was how to make the 270 m2 site work for a family of five taking into account realistic changes in the houses pattern of use over many years. We had to do that around an existing house and with varying budgets over a ten-year timeframe. It was an ongoing process of tuning and adaption rather than wholesale redesign and redevelopment of the property. We have resolved issues of privacy, separation of functions and long-term storage in practical yet poetic ways. A balance between built area and outside space has also allowed us to achieve significant recreational spaces, a pool, a garden and separate studio give the house a tranquil private world apart form the neighborhood and immediately adjoining properties. We have demonstrated to council that an FSR of 0.85:1 need not reduce the amenity and quality of the built residential environment, but in fact give it renewed life and a longer term viability.

The project was indeed collaborative but because the process was spread over such a long time frame and the works comparatively small, it is hard to qualify significant singular contributions. Certainly the resolution of the house has benefited from the input of good engineers, builders and landscapers, and it is the successful integration of these works over time that give the project overall appeal. Art, landscape, structure and life are all successfully accommodated within the envelope.

The project was never intended as an architectural tour de force. It was economically conceived and driven. While care and creativity are at its core, detailing is generally straightforward and easily achievable. Doing any project staged as this was over a number of years makes straightforward budgeting difficult, however it’s a good case for considering that incremental improvement can in the end achieve what wholesale redevelopment costs would prohibit. It also allows for a richer final outcome, one that evolves more slowly carefully and with less impact. 

The house is well considered in terms of sustainability. First and foremost it maximizes the utilization of an existing building and by making good use of what you already have is a great start to a sustainable model. The footprint and life style presented are compact and efficient thus supporting the view that houses need not get bigger to be better. Here a house under the average size (220m2) for a family home comfortably accommodates a household well over the average occupants per dwelling (5 people). 

The house is well orientated, naturally cooled, thermally efficient with staged environmental systems such as power generation and water storage progressively implemented as budgets and availability demand.

We have been part of this community since we bought the property over ten years ago now. In that time we have seen the area and the immediate neighborhood change and evolve in many positive ways.  This project is part of, and contributes to an overall upgrading of amenity within the entire district and the modifications have enabled the house to be occupied comfortably in the longer term.

The changes have not been made with a view to resale, they have made to maintain this property as a house and home for the long term.  Randwick is a well-connected well-serviced inner-east suburb of Sydney.

Its proximity to beaches, parks and the city make it an attractive place to live. The problem of affordability is real in these areas where young couples are increasing drawn to raise families and maintain healthy, rich and convenient lifestyles.  People need to adapt to these changed economic circumstances and adjustment to  our expectations about space and the size required of the home in Australia must take place.

My hope is that the house serves as a good model for discussing the shape of broader residential development in general . Whether in the form of new developments or the retrofitting of existing areas it serves as an exemplar of what good sound and creative architectural thinking can bring to the problem of housing and how that may play out in the broader social and community context.