Today we’ll take you through a casual holiday home along the Australian coast in Avoca Beach, New South Wales. The Avoca Weekender by Architecture Saville Isaacs is a relaxed, robust home with a strong relationship to outdoors and evocative views. Architecture Saville Isaacs designed the house so that it takes advantage of its orientation and bush setting with sunlight, views, and privacy. Come with us as go on a full house tour!
“The brief was to design a house robust enough for hordes of children, yet with an element of luxury for adults. Referencing the unique position between the sea and the Australian bush, by means of textures, textiles, materials, colors, and smells, to evoke a timeless connection to place, intrinsic to the memories of family holidays.” – Architecture Saville Isaacs
A certain warmth is shown upon entering the home, with the interior revealing a soft assembly of hardwood floors and white walls that receive daylight openly through cleverly situated windows, timber screen walls, and vertical posts. One of the key principles entails a focus on the tactile quality of materials: a consistent palette of polished concrete, waxed recycled wire-brushed tallowwood, textured white laminate joinery selected for robustness, low maintenance, and recyclability.
The living room façades fold open, enabling seamless integration of indoor and outdoor rooms. This also gives a glimpse into the entire living space’s distinct preference for materials that resemble luxury in its simplest means. The kitchen space, dining, and living area across the upper level open up to showcase a more expansive look. Natural light freely pierces through the living spaces modulated by pivoting timber screens. Furniture and other fixtures were kept light and straightforward, which creates a sensible and sophisticated aesthetic.
Through the concept of integrating interior furnishing with a focus on locally designed and sourced palette of natural materials, the team has been able to achieve a design which blends into and creates an emotive response to the Australian bush. It is how these every day, cost-effective materials are put together and expressed, that creates the quality of space and architecture.
“It focuses on the interrelationship with the surrounding environment, volumetric quality, light enhanced sculpted open spaces, and tactile quality of materials. The design promotes the unity of architecture and interiors. It works with the elements of materiality, space, volume, and light seeking to achieve a sense of peace and tranquillity.” – Architecture Saville Isaacs
House Project: Avoca Weekender
Architect: Architecture Saville Isaacs
Location: Avoca Beach, NSW
Photography: Kata Bayer
