A Celebration of Structure – Broadbeach Waters by BDA Architecture

Opening to its vast seascape frontage, Broadbeach Waters welcomes a blurred threshold between inside and out. BDA Architecture celebrates the building’s core structural materiality as sculpture within space.

Located in Queensland’s Broadbeach Waters, the project of the same name is an open and welcoming expression of its comprising parts. Born from the client’s impassioned fascination with revealing the hidden beauty of the building’s contributing engineering, the resulting structure is defined by its open display of core materiality. Opening itself up to the beach onto which it fronts, the home offers a blurred threshold between inside and out, with fully opening façades and floor-to-ceiling glazing elements. BDA Architecture express the materiality as sculpture, where the core elements are revealed and crafted with precision.

BDA Architecture express the materiality as sculpture, where the core elements are revealed and crafted with precision.

Built by Greenroom Building Co, and with interiors by Beckspace, Broadbeach Waters expresses the influence of its industrial use of steel, concrete formwork, glass, blockwork and timber beams, and offers references to modernism. The opening of the façades to its sea frontage is enabled by large-spanning cantilever beams, with minimal support interrupting the view. The clean lines, rectilinear openings and expressed linear planes nod to modernist style, where the large expanses glass was first used, highlighting the building’s engineering capabilities and span lengths.

Located in Queensland’s Broadbeach Waters, the project of the same name is an open and welcoming expression of its comprising parts.

Planned in a ‘u’ shape, the home takes its form as it nestles around its own levelled lap pool and bathing area. The contrast between the hardened materiality of the solid versus the fluid movement of the water allows for a sense of relief from the overall form. Adding a level of warmth and depth in amongst its cooler structural materiality, timber is used as a grounding element on both internal walls, transitional steps and in joinery. Employing a similar use of contrast, the use of compression and release techniques in amongst the exposed structural elements create zones throughout this essentially open-planned home. On approach, the living room opens up to its double-heighted void overhead, and the entry gallery is deliberately open and welcoming of natural light and ventilation.

Planned in a ‘u’ shape, the home takes its form as it nestles around its own levelled lap pool and bathing area.

Broadbeach Waters is both generous and expansive, offering enviable views beyond, while still allowing for privacy within its clean, long lines. Dotted with landscape as a softening of its edges, the five-bedroom, four-carpark residence is both an entertainer’s home and a place to fully immerse within the landscape. As a celebration of its structure, and with a heightened attention to detail of the comprising elements of its impressive spanning structure, BDA Architecture has created a modern take on the industrial, placing its engineering feats on a much-deserved pedestal.