The Panorama of House Llandudno | ARCHITECTURE HUNTER

Here at the bottom of Africa, on the Cape Atlantic coast, we have these beautiful idyllic days but the roaring 40s bring storms right across the Atlantic that pound this coastline. There's a toll of shipwrecks but it also takes a toll on the architecture here on the coast. There's other factors too. There's corrosive sea air and difficult site terrain. As well as the latitude, we're so far south that orientation becomes very important as well. And all of these factors play a role in influencing the architecture and it's what shapes the building that you see here. The forms are designed to resist and moderate the weather and elements. The off-shutter cast concrete, it's maintenance free but it also allows us to cast long spans, deep cantilevers, and the weightlessness that you're seeing here that we feel is it's an illusion in fact and it's created by a chamfered edge. What looks like a super thin slab has actually been carefully cast. This lightness of structure has an elegance about it. The way it opens up to the energy of the beach below, it's stunning. It sits on the water and the building appears to float. At the same time it's connected with the nature. We wanted to integrate this building into nature. It meant that we needed to bring the coastal thicket that belongs in these ravines that run down to the beach into the house. We built a granite boulder pathway out of these massive boulders that were excavated from the site. We planted endemic trees that are from these ravines. They are milkwoods and other local species that are resistant to the salt air here. They grow here and this journey up to the front door is reminiscent of that journey down to the beach. Sustainability and architecture is a collective thought process. It starts at design inception. It involves the whole team. It runs through the build and passes on to the owner and how they live and use the building, how they manage the systems. The systems implemented here involve passive solutions like heat sinking concretes and photovoltaics and origin sourcing materials. These systems are implemented to help us look after the planet. The material selection is a tactile response to the environment around us. The material palette is kept to white walls and off-shelter concretes and timber floors. And this allows the artwork to really do the talking inside the space. The interior itself is more about the architecture, the spaces that it's created, than the things inside. This allows for a space that's in harmony with nature. It's serene and peaceful. This is a home suited for here. This moment, this beach, a tranquil beach house designed to be enjoyed barefoot.