project: Lagoon Beach House

location: Low Head, Northern Tasmania

awards: Australian Institute of Architects Awards – New Residential Commendation

description:  Lagoon Beach House is set within a ‘hamlet’ of a few scattered shacks, with a wonderful lack of fences the site supports strong bonds between three Tasmanian families – 40 extended family and friends spanning four generations make this their special island retreat, a place for shared living and holiday experiences.

Lagoon Beach House while modernist in programme is nonetheless a contemporary shack referencing the Tasmanian shack vernacular. A minimalist geometry reminiscent of Jean Prouve’s elegance with economy of means the upper form of a honed wooden box, vertical boards that will change colour with time, floats over its white plinth.

Formed around the idea of a ‘town-square’ the house has an implied semi-public realm, yet the ‘positive’ pressure of the courtyard-piazza is paradoxically the intimate garden for the home. The sculptural form of this private retreat pin-wheels around the focal point of the courtyard, a ‘stage for living’ where Steve and Leonie express their individuality, connecting in varied ways the social life of the ‘hamlet’ with lagoon, beach, and interior spaces.

category: residential

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