Inside a Dream Home With Iconic Views of Sydney Harbour (House Tour)
Summary
TLDRArchitects Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon discuss the design philosophy of Rose Bay House, emphasizing the balance between performance and calmness, architectural and landscaping integration, and privacy. The house, situated on a steep, elevated site, features floating shells over gardens, offering privacy and views. It is designed to be a flexible family home, accommodating different stages of life and entertaining needs, with a focus on material detail for space definition and a harmonious balance of robustness and lightness.
Takeaways
- 🏡 The Rose Bay House was designed to embody both performance and calmness, with a focus on creating a sanctuary of privacy.
- 🌿 The integration of architectural and landscaping elements was crucial to achieve a seamless connection between the built form and the natural environment.
- 👨👩👧👦 The house was intended to be a family home, adaptable to accommodate different life stages and sizes of gatherings.
- 🏙️ The site's elevated position allowed for the house to be discreet, blending with the heavily vegetated grounds and maintaining privacy.
- 🛕 The architectural design features floating shells that sit over gardens, creating a unique arrival experience that transitions from the gardens to the terrace with a view.
- 🎉 The house was configured to host a variety of social events, emphasizing the client's passion for entertaining and gathering.
- 👪 The design considered the balance between creating intimate spaces for a few and accommodating larger groups, reflecting the family's dynamic lifestyle.
- 🏞️ Material detailing and the thoughtful division of spaces were employed to create defined areas without relying on traditional doorways or barriers.
- 🌅 The planning took into account the daily life and occupation of the house, ensuring optimal light penetration and a balance of views to both the harbor and the garden.
- 💎 The house's design aimed to reconcile the solidity of its construction with a sense of lightness and delicacy, using stone as a key material to achieve this.
- 🌳 The garden's maturity over time has enhanced the initial design vision, achieving a sense of balance and integration with the built environment.
Q & A
What was the primary goal for the architects when designing the Rose Bay House?
-The primary goal for the architects was to create a building that performed well while also providing a sense of calmness, sanctuary, and privacy through a combination of architectural and landscaping design.
Who are Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon, and what is their role in the project?
-Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon are the architects responsible for the design of the Rose Bay House. They were involved in the conceptualization and execution of the architectural strategy for the project.
What is the geographical significance of the Rose Bay House's location?
-The Rose Bay House is located at one end of Rose Bay, with views across a body of water towards the city. Its elevated position on a steep, sloped site allows for a sense of discretion and privacy.
How did the architects address the challenge of the site's steep terrain and crowded neighbors?
-The architects designed the house to have floating shells that sit over the gardens, creating a sense of arrival through these elements rather than a heavy masonry structure that rises from the contour.
What was the main consideration for the house to be a family home?
-The house needed to be flexible to accommodate different ages and stages as the family grows and changes, as well as to host gatherings and entertain diverse groups of visitors.
How did the architects ensure the house could cater to both large gatherings and intimate moments?
-The architects planned the house to have a sense of scale that was also intimate, with spaces defined through material detail and containment of glazed elements, allowing for both large group occupation and intimate settings.
What was the design approach to balancing the views of the harbor and the garden?
-The architects aimed for a visual stereo or surround sound effect by ensuring that the plan addressed both the outlook opportunities for the sun and the balance of views to the harbor and the garden.
What material did the architects choose to achieve the desired sense of robustness and lightness?
-The architects chose stone for its permanence and the ability to provide lightness. They tested samples on-site to ensure the material met their design ambitions of robustness with a delicate appearance.
How does the design of the Rose Bay House respond to the changing needs of its occupants as they grow from children to young adults?
-The design allows for the accommodation of the children's transition to young adults by providing spaces that can adapt to their changing needs while maintaining a sense of connection to the home.
What is the significance of having spaces with exterior light or openness on at least two sides in residential design?
-Spaces with exterior light or openness on at least two sides enhance the feeling of connection to the external environment, making the occupants feel more directly connected to nature and the outdoors.
How has the garden matured over time and what impact does it have on the overall design?
-The garden has matured significantly, establishing a sense of balance that was initially envisioned in the design. This balance enhances the overall experience of living in the Rose Bay House.
Outlines
🏡 Design Philosophy of Rose Bay House
The Rose Bay House is designed to embody a sense of calmness and sanctuary through a harmonious blend of architecture and landscaping. Architects Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon emphasize the importance of the building's discreet presence on a steep, elevated site, which is heavily vegetated for privacy. The house is envisioned as floating shells over gardens, offering a terrace with views of the city. It is intended to be a flexible family home, capable of accommodating different stages of family life and entertaining various groups. The design focuses on creating intimate spaces that are also part of a larger, well-defined plan, using material details to divide spaces without relying on doorways.
🌟 Balancing Solidity and Lightness in Design
The design of the Rose Bay House also addresses the dual nature of being both solid and light. The architects sought a material that could provide the robustness and permanence of stone while also conveying a sense of delicacy and movement. This was achieved by using stone samples that interacted beautifully with the dappled light on site. The building is embedded into the ground with a basement level and rises through three distinct levels, each with its own personality. The design ensures that every space within the home feels connected to the external environment, with an emphasis on natural light and openness. The architects appreciate the evolution of the house and garden over time, noting the maturation of the garden and its contribution to the overall sense of balance and connection with nature.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Architectural Strategy
💡Sanctuary
💡Landscaping
💡Floating Shells
💡Flexibility
💡Intimacy
💡Material Detail
💡Light Penetration
💡Solid and Light
💡Connection to Exterior
Highlights
The architects aimed to create a building that performed well but also exuded a sense of calmness and sanctuary.
Architectural and landscaping elements were combined to create privacy and a sense of retreat.
Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon are the architects behind the Rose Bay House project.
The house is located at one end of Rose Bay with views across the water back towards the city.
The steep, sloping site is close to the harbor and surrounded by neighbors.
The existing house was discreet due to heavily vegetated grounds, a feature the architects wanted to maintain or enhance.
The new architecture was designed to have floating shells over the gardens rather than a heavy masonry structure.
The house needed to be a flexible family home that could accommodate different ages and stages.
Entertaining and gathering were important aspects of the client's life, influencing the home's configuration.
The house had to maintain a sense of intimacy even when occupied by a large group.
Spaces were defined through material detail and contained elements to avoid an overly open plan.
The planning addressed both outlook opportunities for sun and the balance of views to the harbor and garden.
The house has a unique conflict of being both solid and light, a concept the architects embraced in its design.
Stone was chosen for its permanence and ability to provide lightness and delicacy.
The basement level embeds the building in the ground, creating a sense of solidity.
As the building rises, it transitions from solidity to a more open and view-oriented design.
The top level balances solidity with a lighter material, providing protection and capturing morning and afternoon sun.
The architects value designing residential spaces that connect occupants to the exterior environment.
The garden has matured over time, achieving the balance envisioned in the initial design.
Transcripts
We wanted the building to perform, but we also wanted a house that actually just had a sense of
calmness. There is a sense of sanctuary and privacy that's a combination of both
architectural and landscaping sort of combining together and that is really
important. I think we as architects we'll talk to the structure and the built form but
the way that the garden, the courtyard and the grounds stitch
with the architectural strategy was very important to us.
Hi I'm Tim Hay, I'm Jeff Fearon this is the Rose Bay House.
We're at one end of Rose Bay so we look across a body of water back
towards the city. It's steep terrain away from the level of the harbour and it is a
site that slopes up closely sort of crowded by neighbours as the hill rises up from the harbour.
The advantage of coming from a elevated position is that the house itself can be quite
discreet and certainly the existing house that was here you really didn't read it from
the street, given the grounds were very heavily vegetated and I think that's something
we really wanted to keep or enhance in fact. So that sense of coming off the street and gently
dropping into the garden was working up something that we had experienced when we
first came to the site and figuring out how we change that. The biggest difference probably is
the architecture was designed not to have this kind of heavy masonry structure that rises up from
the contour but more to be these kind of floating shells that sit over the gardens and that you slip
under those or through those to arrive at the terrace that is the delivery towards the view.
It was always going to be a family home that meant
a number of things across the years that were in front of us.
So it needed to be a home that could flexibly accommodate different ages and stages as the
family grows and rejoins and then goes off on different ventures. I think entertaining has
always been or gathering has been a big part of the client's life and is something that they're
very passionate about so it was always configured in such a way that it could
host different groups of people within the family but also much more diverse groups
of people who might come and visit and enjoy the finished property as well.
The other challenge with that brief was that we wanted the house to have a sense of scale that
was also intimate when there were just the two people in the house and obviously the children
are accommodated but that they're at an age where they're sort of transitioning from being children
to sort of young adults and moving away from the building, so as we were configuring the house it
needed to sort of be able to have the occupation of a large group but still that sense of intimacy
if you know there was just a couple of people having breakfast together so the process of
understanding the extent of those variations of occupation were quite critical in the planning.
We wanted to have spaces that were defined, we didn't want to have a plan that was
completely open in all directions. So there was a division of the spaces that needed to occur, there
was a sense that we didn't want to contain them with doorways and as cells but we didn't also want
a plan that was open and undefined as completely sort of free space. So as we developed the planning
we wanted that definition to be through material detail, through containment of glazed and
contained elements so the division was purposeful. We were looking at which spaces needed to address
which opportunity, obviously the harbour was a very strong aspect and and there's an extent of outlook
and breadth that addresses that but in balance we also wanted the opportunity of light and light
penetration through the day to be available to the plan and I think the process where
we considered a day in the life what was the occupation through the day and a morning sunbeam
in the kitchen was something that was absolutely critical to us so the planning both addressed
outlook opportunities for sun and opportunities to balance the view to the harbour with the garden as
we've mentioned before was a jewel, an experience that wanted to be available a number of spaces so
rather than having a a sense of outlook that was singular there was a sense of visual stereo or
surround sound from a visual point of view that we were trying to sort of incorporate into the spaces.
The house at its essence has this conflict between being both solid and light and that
was something that we loved about the evolution of the design. We wanted a house the client was
very clear that had to be robust, had to be solidly built it was embedded into the
ground and one of the things that we thought about early on in the design process was if we
could have a sense of the skin having the robustness that we need but had this delicacy
to it that would be beautiful and we started to look at samples and stone was one that we
wondered how could we have something that had the permanence of stone but provide the lightness and
then early on in the design process we came to site with a number of samples and we held
them up and we looked at them on the site and there was this moment when the light that was
dappled through the trees came through when one of the samples of stone that we had in our hand
and it was a moment where we said well this starts to fulfil those ambitions. It provides
the layering, it has a sense of delicacy and also a sense of movement so that process of
setting those ambitions from a design point of view, testing the materials and then physically
coming here and starting to hold things in the air it was fascinating. It meant
that you know we discovered with the client an opportunity through that process.
The robustness is the fact that the building is embedded in the ground, we have a basement level
that we had to cut sandstone geology away to sort of embed the building so as it rises from that
base there are three levels and it has different personalities as it rises up, as it rises from
the basement it's definitely contained, there is no outlook. As it traverses the mid level which we're
on that solidity dissolves and there is obviously a sense of outlook and view and aspect that we're
trying to capture and as it transitions to the third level the sort of sleeping level
of the building, it is a balance of those two things actually. It becomes solid again but it
becomes solid with a very different material. It has a a skin and shell of stone that provides .
protection as we climb we are also more visible to the neighbours in the
surrounding neighborhood but we also wanted to be living in a home that had.
a sense of lightness and able to capture the opportunity of morning and afternoon sun.
One of the things that we kind of think is defining about designing spaces as
residential spaces or for or to live in is that it's a beautiful opportunity to have spaces
that have exterior light or openness on both sides or at least two sides. If you are in a
space that is kind of two or three layers deep into the occupancy of the home it's a long way
from being able to feel that you're connected to the exterior and I think that almost defines what
it feels like to be in one of our homes is that you can connect to the external environment from
each of the spaces quite directly. We love returning to a building that we've designed after
a period of time because things change. I think the garden has matured incredibly and it's
taken on the sense of balance we imagined initially when we designed the building
but knew had to have a period of time to establish and that balance is one of the things that we love.
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