A Celebration of Life by the Sea – Coastal Pavilion by Mim Design

Celebrating seaside living, the series of volumes that comprise Coastal Pavilion embody a lifestyle connected to the outdoors. Mim Design takes heeded from the mid-century masters to conjure a timeless and enduring home from a place of authenticity.

Burrowed into its popular Sorrento locale, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, the formal approach of Coastal Pavilion is inspired by its setting and the surrounding vernacular. An aspirational area inhabited by occasional homes and frequented by the travelling Melbourne city-dweller, Sorrento offers a coastal escape from the metropolitan life, embodying an effortless calm. The replacement of the existing light-weight structure on the site rightfully needed to combine elements of permanence and robustness, while also echoing the same shared essence of its locale. Mim Design reimagines the home through a contemporary lens, taking references from the mid-century period as a response to the climatic conditions and a shared emphasis on indoor/outdoor living. Instead of encasing the whole house within one bounding perimeter, the resulting home sees a series of open pavilions that intersect on site.

Mim Design reimagines the home through a contemporary lens, taking references from the mid-century period as a response to the climatic conditions and a shared emphasis on indoor/outdoor living.

Built by Made Build, Coastal Pavilion is a personal expression of its owners who have decided to plant their feet solidly into their site and call it home. With a business in the area, the choice to relocate came with the opportunity to transform the existing beach shack in place of a more permanent home to showcase an already established collection of furniture and stylings. Across its sloping site, pavilion forms intersect and take advantage through openings and orientation of the varying impacting aspects. The select materiality also speaks to the creation of a sense of balance, where harder and textured elements are softened by more natural ones.

As a journey of revealing and concealing, the entry offers snippets of what is to come, as its staggered circulation space slowly builds and opens. The varying levels across the site allow for optimised views, while also creating pockets of privacy and seclusion. Muted and monochromatic tones are used throughout, echoing a sense of longevity and resolve, while furniture, artwork and lighting are a collaboration between the owners and select newly introduced elements. Charred timber, painted bricks, zinc and off form concrete provide the home’s exterior casing, while internally brick and timber are brought through in a slightly softer expression to create a comfortable and welcoming series of spaces.

The select materiality also speaks to the creation of a sense of balance, where harder and textured elements are softened by more natural ones.

In Coastal Pavilion, Mim Design has maintained an open and casual aesthetic, while creating a contemporary home of permanence. The result is envisioned to endure well beyond its years, while still connecting to the coastal and calm vernacular of living by the ocean.