Whale Beach House

Recognition

  • Australian Good Design Awards

    Architectural Design Interior Design

    Good Design Award Winner 2021

  • Sydney Design Awards

    Interior Design – Residential

    Silver Award 2021

  • Australian Interior Design Awards

    Residential Design

    Shortlist 2021

  • IDEA 2021 Awards

    Residential Single

    Shortlist 2021

A Sydney beachside home takes a vertical village approach to multi-generational living, while resisting the temptation of an all glass facade.

  • The brief from a professional couple was for a home of many modes, with guest accommodation for extended family stays, and an outdoor entertaining area for large gatherings. The building bunkers into the cliff over four levels, each with its own distinct feeling. Entry-level guest quarters are separated from the top-floor master suite by a living level where kitchen, dining and lounge open to a broad garden terrace.

  • Architectural gymnastics have brought northern sun into south-facing front rooms, allowing plays of light and shade to animate the interior. At the core of the house, a skylit staircase is anchored by a curved wall in a deep kelp green, with a fine brass balustrade.

  • Interiors are dressed in watery greens with brass against oak, and richly veined quartz. Warm pastel accents appear in custom furniture and artworks, including a three-metre triptych of impasto oils commissioned for the vast western wall of the dining room. A pale grey limestone floor extends the main living spaces onto the garden terrace.

Watery colours with natural timbers and stone ground each space with a calming elemental essence.

Interiors are designed as an all-encompassing experience, blurring the lines between function, furniture and sculpture.

  • Architecture & Interiors Studio Johnston
  • Builder Pacific Plus Constructions
  • Landscape JILA
  • Stylist Kirsten Stanwix Bookali
  • Photographer Anson Smart