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The feeling of the home is about refuge and retreat, it turns itself away from the street,
away from the north light and uses materials and spaces that are calm and full of light.
My name is Nadine Alwill and I'm the architect for Cove House.
The brief from the client was pretty clear they had their own sort of style and aesthetic that
they wanted imbued in the house but most importantly to create a place of refuge
and a really good connection to nature and the natural environment.
There were lots of controls from the site itself and from authorities in
the area but for the most part it was for the client about being connected to nature
and making sure that their own style was really big driver in their design.
As you enter into the house you come into a big double-height space and to one side
there's more public spaces and the other side both upstairs and downstairs are more private spaces.
So if you come upstairs the main living space it has the kitchen,
the living, the dining area, all in one and it embraces the view and the bush.
And then that runs through a long piece of joinery that takes you down into the
main bedroom and the kids bedrooms and bathrooms.
Downstairs is the same where the public spaces embrace the view and the bushland
much more openly and there's a huge rumpus room
with tall ceiling spaces that looks out over the pool and the harbour.
Cove House is located in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney on the amazingly beautiful Sydney Harbour.
The neighbourhood is pretty unique in that we're in an urban setting and
we actually look out onto bushland which feels like you could be in the middle of nowhere.
My name is Simon Howard, I'm the senior designer at Dangar Barin Smith
and I was the lead designer on this project.
Dangar Barin Smith and Alwill have had some collaboration pieces in the past
and they always turn out to be a really amazing finished product and this is no exception.
There's a lot of trust associated with each other's discipline and those overlapping areas
are probably where you really see the good collaboration coming through.
So whilst the site itself was quite blank the true heroes were the views out to the
harbour and the close association with the national park. They were very strong design
aspects they couldn't be ignored so in those scenarios it's always easy to work with those
design elements as opposed to push against them. It always comes about for a nicer outcome
and something that looks a little bit more natural as opposed to forced.
The whole idea behind the house in almost every space is about embracing that connection to the
bush and I think it informed not only the layout, the windows, you know, the way the glazing works,
how they open and close architecturally, but also then the palette inside and outside. So
we have the greys, we have the bronzes, and then with the interior furnishings you start
to see the greens and the colours that you get in the trees and the bush around you. You know
it's quite a contemporary statement in an area that has lots of beach bungalows and a pretty
traditional urban fabric and that's changing and the specific location of this house does have many
more contemporary buildings around it so there's a sense of fit there but there's also that sense of
you know 'wow factor' and awe that you get when you come out of the main urban area and from the
little beaches walk along the bush path and see this sort of cool concrete cantilevered house.
The clients for this property were a family with
some young children so whilst the house is quite strong and beautifully designed it
did have to cater for these young kids so our approach with the landscape was just to bring
some looser softer textures up against it and allow it to really emerge from the landscape.
It was really about selecting locations for upright plantings and soft climbers
to just soften some harsh corners but allowing those strong architectural materials to pop.
Having natural light was really important to the client and how they live
but also from an architectural perspective with the use of the concrete and the natural timbers,
having that different light play at different times of day,
throwing shadows whether it's striated or circular was just magical.
The entry stairwell was crucial to bringing light into the space from every angle. In the mornings
you get it through the bushland and the double height windows, throughout the day it plays out
on the concrete walls with the two blades and in the afternoon the lights pours in through
the upstairs level. There's light coming in from everywhere and you really experience
the passage of time through the day and through the seasons because of the way
that the light in the air can move through the house and the house can connect to the outside.
The master suite is a retreat from the day-to-day.
And a client brief was to be able to have a bathroom that also connects to outside and nature
so you can sit in the bathtub and open up all the doors and look out into the trees and just relax.
The main bedroom balcony is pretty special because it's
totally quiet and private and opens up the bedroom
so that it feels always connected to the trees which are really close like right next to it.
The downstairs rumpus and terrace is crucial to that connection for them.
They live in that space, they live in the outdoor space - it's all interconnected
and there's stairs that cascade down into the bushland beside them where the landscape design
really sensitively integrates their own garden into the native bush garden which is adjacent.
The site itself is fairly narrow so there wasn't a lot of play
with the pool but it was actually pretty straightforward, the pool's something on
the site that I really love just drops away to the peanut shaped lawn below
and then beyond that the harbour. It's one of the the nicer parts of the property.
The bit I'm most proud of? Well I mean everything you know like I'm really proud that the palette
which we chose to be simple and consistent throughout, that it really works and that the
materials that we chose that they're ageing well, they'll wear the patina of time and I
think you know there was so much love and effort put into the rumpus room and the terrace leading
out to the pool, that tall shaded space is just so nice to sit in and talk - we used to have our site
meetings there, everyone would sit up on a table and have coffee and listen to the birds at 7AM in
the morning as the sun came up and streamed in at low levels through winter, it was pretty awesome.
My favourite product throughout would be the
cabinetry and the concrete. The cabinetry is the same all the way throughout the
house and has beautiful handles that adapt to each space from Made Measure.
The concrete which is both by the builder
but also by artisans from Concrete Nation is pretty sublime.
There's a sink and a stove,
the rangehood is from Qasair and the sink has a Zip Tap which does hot, cold and sparkling water.
The pantry is concealed behind bi-fold doors using half-lay mechanisms and the whole thing's
clad in timber veneer from DMK Forest products which is grey iron bark and Australian timber.
The bronze island benchtop is pretty spectacular and is made by a local metal artisan a guy called
Brian Martin who found solid bronze sheet and aged it to suit our purpose.
The client chose the artwork mostly from Sydney Road Gallery. The one
on the concrete wall which hangs so beautifully is by Fiona Chandler and
there's also another piece of hers along the hallway.
Artwork at the end of the hall which is so bright and colourful is by Misha Harrison and the piece
that hangs upstairs and sits in the window frame behind the fireplace is by Jessica Watts.
In the master bedroom the bed head has been custom made for the space
and the bed is framed by two Poliform bedside tables.
All the bathrooms have the same pallet. The tapware is from Brodware
it's in an aged bronze and it's the Industrica Range.
The vanities are all custom designed by us, made by Concrete Nation.
And the bronze handles are by Made Measure.
The tapware is from Brodware and the bronze handles we chose because they
create a rustic and industrial look whilst conveying a sense of calm and quiet space.
The balcony furniture upstairs is Living Divani. It's light but still
comfortable and easy to move around so it can adapt to the different times of day.
The downstairs living terrace and pool area has Living Divani
lounges similar to upstairs so we can shift and change to upstairs and downstairs if needs be
and there's a table by Specified Store which has been custom made for the space.
The downstairs rumpus room has a B&B Italian Tufty Time Sofa, a Loom Rug and some Poliorm coffee
tables and it's all about being cosy and snuggled up and being able to bunker in and watch a movie.
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