A Sunken Courtyard Anchors This Concrete Home to Its Steep Waterfront Site

CHROFI designs a home for an empty-nester couple on Sydney’s northern beaches that contrasts rugged concrete with refined millwork.

Jul 17, 2020 - 21:34

A Sunken Courtyard Anchors This Concrete Home to Its Steep Waterfront Site

CHROFI designs a home for an empty-nester couple on Sydney’s northern beaches that contrasts rugged concrete with refined millwork.

The ground floor is where the clients spend most of their time. The main living space opens up to the waterfront via sliding glass doors, and the floors are burnished concrete to complement the board-formed walls.

When an empty-nester couple in Sydney decided to build their own home, they found a site in Church Point, a suburb in Sydney’s northern beaches overlooking a beautiful body of water to a national park. Set against a steep rock face, the west-facing site proved challenging—and the initial scheme felt disconnected from the site, with a singular focus on views to the water. The couple also felt it wasn’t sympathetic to their needs as they grew older. So, they decided to change tack and approached local firm CHROFI to develop a new scheme.

The clients enjoy boating and kayaking and often utilize the site’s direct water access. "There’s a boathouse at the bottom of the site, so we’ve tried to clean the view up," says architect Fraser Mudge of the framing. "We also controlled the height of it a little bit to frame the beauty of the water and the National Park, rather than the sky."

Katherine Lu

"The site has direct deepwater frontage to McCarrs Creek, a mystical body of water connected to Pittwater," says lead architect Fraser Mudge. "The more time you spend there, the more you appreciate the subtleties of how it changes day to day. It is really lovely."