Potent Mix

Concrete and glass deliver strength of character in this Sydney waterside home, designed to accommodate three generations.

- Chris Pearson

Tucked behind trees abutting a beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, this home is tantalisingly low-key on the outside, but walk into the double-height entry and, like the Tardis, it opens up miraculously before you. Luminous and light-filled, it inhales its airy location, with inside and out becoming one.

Intriguingly, it was designed “from the inside out”, says architect Bruce Stafford. Its rigorously articulated interior, crafted in collaboration with interior designers Hare + Klein, informs the outside too, so the surfaces ow seamlessly into each other. The connection is enhanced by the floor-to-ceiling glass, sightlines that draw in seaside vistas and an internal courtyard forming the lungs of the home.

It’s a world away from the squat bungalow that occupied the site when the owners, a professional couple now with three children, bought it in 2009. They had a clear vision of what they wanted, says Bruce: not a beach house but still a home that soaked up its dress-circle seaside location, sophisticated but also warm and tactile, and filled with light. And forged with meticulous attention to detail. That’s precisely what they got, thanks to the Hare + Klein team of Meryl Hare, Victoria Cybulski and Anna Douglass, as well as Bruce.