After Weathering 40 Years, a Wooden Family Home in Australia Is Renovated for What’s Next

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Project Details:

Location: Smiths Beach, Victoria, Australia

Architect: OSA and Insider Outsider

General Contractor: Cordell Projects

Structural Engineer: R Bliem & Associates

Landscape Design: Coastal Native Landscape

Cabinetry Design: The Makery Club

Photographer: Rory Gardiner / @arorygardiner

From the Architect: "Hollywood, as this home is known, is one of a handful of timber houses at Smiths Beach, Phillip Island, designed by architect John Baird in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Baird’s houses were designed in consideration of siting, view, orientation, and with minimal site coverage to allow space for landscaping. Only two houses remain, including this one, which is located on a prominent corner location.

"The home was thoroughly tested and proven over 30 years of family use, and the clients wanted to retain its easy function and utilitarian materiality while adding further accommodation for the evolution of family life.

"Built entirely from timber, plywood, galvanized metal sheets, and glass, which were readily available for purchase off-the-shelf, the material and dimensional logic of the original house were tightly connected to the economy of its construction. The original cube-like form created a strong volumetric language but also yielded carefully to the slope of the land. The introduction of new space and amenity was defined by these pre-existing conditions, continuing the scale of rooms, stepped floor plates and vertical inhabitation while also reusing existing materials where possible. Opportunities for connection to the site and surrounding environment were to be introduced only where they played a functional role and improved what was already in place.

"A new, two-story addition is consistent in scale with the original house and clad in rough-sawn treated pine salvaged on site from a demolished wall and shed. The upper level now contains all the requirements for a couple or small family holiday while the ground floor rooms allow for further occupation as required. Decks across both levels maximize use through varying qualities of enclosure: fully open, partially covered and roofed, allowing for a view of the ocean or a retreat from the wind.

"A series of minimal interventions were made to the original building; creating new openings by stripping walls back to stud frame, bringing light in from the north, introducing louvered windows and hatches for airflow, and improving insulation and glazing. Where possible, functional elements were retained or repurposed: the original staircase was reoriented, a pantry became a closet and a repositioned shed, containing various surf and ocean equipment, activates an underutilized area of the garden.

"The design minimizes the need for a variety of specialists and trades, placing value in the existing structure and materials by reusing the structural frame, external cladding, Oregon beams, and plywood flooring. Newly introduced materials are highly functional, require minimal upkeep and improve with weathering and age."

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