Byron Bay House

by Pleysier Perkins & Prebuilt

A refined and relaxing contemporary home, just meters from the sands of Byron Bay. The design of this idyllic home overlooking one of Australia’s best known beaches allows multiple families to visit, while enjoying private spaces. Located high up on a cliff, the home stretches toward the ocean and back towards Arakwal National Park in the south east – optimizing the many vantage points of its siting. The building was carefully zoned over three levels, with the top level for entertaining, connecting the generous outdoor decks and their vista views seamlessly inside to the living, dining and study areas. The middle level hosts bedrooms and provides a private entry experience. The lower level accommodates a unique guest bunk room, secondary entry and living area leading out to another private deck overlooking the swimming pool. For ease of movement around the home an internal lift was included with access to all levels. The home was built at Prebuilt’s factory in Kilsyth, Victoria consisting of eight modules which were then transported from Victoria to Byron Bay and installed across two days using a 350 tonne crane.

Integral to the project is the preservation of the character of the original masonry boundary walls and the unique stone walls that stand as testament to its storied past and provide an instant patina to the landscape. The existing pool was also fully refurbished to provide a space for the family to unwind. Several challenges were presented throughout this project, including a site that falls seven meters from back to front and an existing design approval that needed to be altered for prefabrication. With a large neighboring building in close vicinity, the solution was to create privacy through a series of blade walls to the bedrooms, promoting natural cooling from the sea breeze and creating direct water views. With the site just meters from the beach, a simple palette of band sawn timber cladding and zinc were selected to cope with the harsh environment and also age gracefully over time. As the building was split into eight modules, most of the zinc and timber claddings was installed in the factory to further reduce the time on site.