As a super-luxury home inspired by its unique location nestled between the tranquil waters of Pittwater, the surfing beaches of Avalon, and the woodlands of Clareville on Sydney's North Beaches, M House envelops the landscape within its main structure in a captivating and profound way. Rama Architects created a home that visually connects residents to the surrounding landscape while maintaining a sense of privacy and serenity.
Based on the idea that form follows function, this super-house-inspired home had to be functional first, then focus on layout and flow. Therefore, architect Rama responded to the client's brief request to create a home in the modern Brazilian style. This style relies on creating a sense of transparency and connection with the surrounding waterways while maintaining a sense of dignity.
With a tangible connection between indoor and outdoor spaces, you'll experience an immediate sense of peace as greenery envelops the house's architecture. Upon entering this inspiring ultra-luxury home, one is greeted by a courtyard bathed in light filtered through the canopy above. The house is characterized by floor-to-ceiling glass windows and relies heavily on subtropical design principles as well as the modern Brazilian philosophy surrounding prioritizing natural light and ventilation. Trees cascade down from the terrace and are visible from every room, further reinforcing the appreciation of the beachfront location. Similarly, the main living area effortlessly escapes the water and western skyline, while the sunken living room is incorporated to complement the ultra-modern Brazilian-inspired house's design and ensures no sofas or furniture obstruct the view.
M House is based on the connection between masculine and feminine materials, creating a sense of both security and vulnerability within the home. For example, privacy is created through the striking facade and the greenery covering the building. Similarly, the limited color palette of materials – including grey sandstone, concrete, and greasewood – speaks of a distinctly modernist influence and creates a warmth connected to the surrounding nature.
In essence, architect Rama balances modernist interpretation, the readily prevailing dialogue between nature and built form, and a brutally expressive quality. The result is an inspiring super-house that evokes a tangible emotional connection between its inhabitants and the architecture of the home.
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Creating an emotional connection to architecture is very important to us.
Whether through the tactility of touching the home or just feeling this sense of calmness as
you walk into a home. Also you want to feel a sense of safety and security through the structure
and a softness and vulnerability through the materiality. Achieving that balance is the hard
part. My name is Thomas Martin. I'm the director at Rama Architects and my role in this project
was the lead architect of the design team. I feel that architecture is not just about the architect
picking up a brief and designing something. So in the M house is this modernist idea.
Form follows function. It needs to be functional first. We need to make sure the layout of the
building is working. We need to make sure that the flow and the connectivity between each room
is working. Clareville is located on the northern end of the northern beaches in the
Pittwater area. It's a small suburbia and it's on the western side of Avalon. The foreshore is the
Pittwater waterway and it's home to many yachts, many boats, lots of water activity and further
west when we look towards the sunset we have the Cooringai National Park. Our clients came to us
with this idea of a Brazilian modernist styled home. We were drawn to this style of architecture
because there is similarities between Brazilian climate and our Sydney climate. So what that meant
was it was about creating this transparency and this connection to the waterway and also emphasis
on privacy and this idea of a sanctuary. The plants and trees immediately engulf you as you
come down the driveway and then to the left you notice a small entrance to a passageway
that begins the journey into the house. As you walk through the entry you're greeted with this
large double-height void space. To the right of the stairs is a courtyard space that opens up.
It lets in this beautiful filtered light of the canopy. You're in an indoor space but you're
literally walking past plants that are at your shoulder. As you walk down a couple of steps
you then walk into the dining area that is connected to the courtyard
and onto the kitchen and large open plan living area. The intent for the living was to create a
not only to bring it back to that idea of the Brazilian modernist styled architecture
but to ensure that you're not having couches or furniture or anything that's distracting from that
view beyond. As you step outside we have the beautiful terrace that is west facing and it's
got a big deep heave over that space. The stair itself is quite shallow so we have a really wide
tread but quite a short riser. We've specifically made it a void so that we're really maximizing
that sunlight coming through from that northern aspect. We have the bridge that connects the adult
and the kids portion of the homes and as you walk through a hidden door you're walking past a walk-in
row and then you're greeted with the master bedroom that looks out over these planter boxes and beyond
into Pittwater. For the master en suite we've implemented Marrakesh Render into this space
and the idea of the Marrakesh Render was to create almost a softness and a sense of
tranquility in this en suite. The pivot windows themselves they can be cracked from 100mm to
completely 90 degrees which is quite beautiful and capture that breeze that comes through from the
west. Privacy was a big part of the client's brief. We created this through almost a dominant brutal
front facade where we have the garage door that is seamless with the front cladding and then it's
this idea of greenery that is just engulfing the building not only coming from the sides of the
building and up over the side boundary lines but it's also the idea that it's sprawling over the
top of the building as well. We decided to lean away from your traditional balustrade being a
glass balustrade so we've got concrete planter boxes that are set back from the eave edge
and the idea was that this planting being small natives would be able to sprawl over the eave edge
and also come back to that idea of tranquility and letting the planting engulf the architecture.
The choice of landscaping was curated by the landscape architect. It's a really rich green
it's not your kind of light greens or more of your browns that we see in other more native
Australian planting. For the M house particularly we needed to have this emphasis on durability
so we focused on this idea of concrete. We've also introduced the sandstone which acts as
almost like anchors which are the columns and the blade walls of the home and that's
been softened through the tallow woods and the timbers both internal and external. For me creating
this connection between masculine and feminine materials is just so important to architecture
and design in general. You can have a brutalist or a minimalist styled home but I think it's
important to contrast that with delicate styling even if it's just through planting through an
artwork on the wall whatever it might be and what that does it creates this juxtaposition
of being safe but also being vulnerable in a sense in the home.
