australian flamingo

Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects design is located in Florida Beach, Western Australia has its design emphasis and focus on the immense Indian Ocean. All of the space is aligned and extruded through a strict dialogue of plan and section revealing the intensity and variety of this great ocean. The Architect designed this house to capture the dying qualities of receding holiday homes in the area while screening the occupants from the emerging suburban houses and protecting them from the strong winds and storms. A deck is created on each of the cardinal points allowing the occupants to live externally any time of the year. Their reference point for the design was found in a sketch by the great Danish architect Jorn Utzon, an image of people congregating on the beach under the dense, stormy Copenhagen sky. The section undulates in relationship to the plan form; each space includes an undulation that is eventually revealed at the beach side as a series of undulations connecting the living, dining and kitchen spaces to the dynamic ocean environment. The section extrudes from the beach end to the street side, those spaces that do not contain a direct view to the ocean maintain the memory of the ocean view through the continuing section. The external cladding is a strictly controlled ribbon of uncut compressed fibre cement sheeting and rough sawn plywood panels, the plywood inhabit the deck spaces and the CFC provides a durable exterior to storm exposed areas which is a restraint reference from the past holiday homes. While the exterior is tactile and articulated, the interior is smooth and sculptured with subtle variations of white paint colour and gloss levels differentiating interior elements and reflecting the exterior. A continuous band of high performance glass articulates the wall cladding from the roof, the roof overhang is carefully sized to exclude summer sun and admit low-level winter sun. The stretched western overhang excludes the low level sun allowing the occupants to engage in comfort with the setting sun. Constructed almost entirely of plantation pine timber, prefabricated and transported to Florida, the raw structure appeared like the carcass of a great whale. The use of steel is minimised to a few select areas where thin columns support the dense undulating roof creating tension in the context of the ocean view. A native landscape garden surrounds this platform, carefully screening the surrounding suburban houses and providing an additional filter to the Western sun and Indian Ocean.