Calm and Restorative – Coastal Semi by Jason Gibney Design Workshop

As a repurposing and re-enlivening exercise, a collective sense of openness and connectedness forms the base for the new works of Coastal Semi. Jason Gibney Design Workshop carefully integrate inside and outside elements with a restrained and effortless palette, conjuring a calm and restorative home.

Nestled into the tightly woven Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, Coastal Semi is founded on being a response to its context and the inherited elements of its previous iteration. As a complete rebuilt, the new home sits emerging from the existing footprint of the previous home, tracing the site’s preceding narrative and past, while proposing and projecting its new one upward. Elements of the home’s coastal positioning inform the resulting vernacular and approach to materiality and palette, while also encouraging a shared sense of openness and connection both internally and between the architectural and landscaped elements. Jason Gibney Design Workshop have purposely reduced internal zoning elements to embolden the home as a flowing and fluid series of spaces, reinforcing a calm sanctuary feel.

Jason Gibney Design Workshop have purposely reduced internal zoning elements to embolden the home as a flowing and fluid series of spaces, reinforcing a calm sanctuary feel.

Both designed and built by Jason Gibney Design Workshop, Coastal Semi takes occupancy over three levels, offering an increased sense of intimacy with each rising level. At the base, the more active and connected zones come together, while at the very top, the master bedroom suite encompasses an entire floor and is a retreat destination in itself. As a repurposing exercise, the previous layout and configuration was rejected, bidding farewell to the dark, stagnantly arranged and rabbit-warren-esque feel. The new was then conjured on the basis of connection and calm, where transitions and arrival moments are celebrated throughout.

At the core of the home is a strength in its restraint. Through the careful replanning of the internal spaces, together with the controlled palette of natural elements, the home comes together as both calm and muted. Concrete and glass feature heavily, framing portals outward to the coast and openly welcoming the outside in, while internally light-coloured blond timber elements sit comfortably along soft white tones. Textural underfloor elements are then woven into the spaces, and furniture and artwork become an opportunity to express the owner’s personality, each dotted throughout. Binding all of the spaces is the connection to the landscape, and incoming natural light, where windows are positioned and pop out to allow light to illuminate and animate the home.

Concrete and glass feature heavily, framing portals outward to the coast and openly welcoming the outside in, while internally light-coloured blond timber elements sit comfortably along soft white tones.

The controlled elements of Coastal Semi engage with the surrounding environ and offer a series of reclusive moments internally. Jason Gibney Design Workshop have created an enduring home of calm, connected to its site, past and one outwardly focussed, with its immersive landscape.