Enduring and Embracing – PR House by Architects Ink

Celebrating its coastal locale, PR House replaces an existing beloved beach shack and proposes an enduring, low maintenance contemporary home. Architects Ink references raw and honest materials intended to age with grace while offering a warm and embracing family environment.

Located south of Adelaide in the popular holiday destination of Port Elliot, PR House stands to weather the imposed climate and ready to embrace its young family of four. Replacing an existing shack dwelling, the site and the destination needed a more permanent and long-lasting solution, better anchored to its site. The home sits between two large vertical concrete walls that flank the building and offer shielding protection from the prevailing winds while also providing textural diversity that engages with the elements throughout the day. Core to the new home is a grounding in low maintenance materials and durability, where select materiality comes together to respond to the surrounding context and climatic conditions. Architects Ink has created a home that captures the many muses of its clients, boldly offering a place of protection and warmth.

The solution sits between two large vertical concrete walls that flank the home and offer shielding protection from the prevailing winds while also offering textural diversity that engages with the elements throughout the day.

Built by Krivic Built, together with engineering by PT Design, PR House is the composition of few elements, arranged to reflect the nature of its setting. Between its two bold flanking concrete walls, two floors are set back behind deep balconies to allow a sense of protection and mediation from the sun. The regularity of its comprising parts is deliberately simplified to allow the home’s square footprint to encase each of the brief’s requirements. The generous balcony spaces become extensions of the internal living zones, allowing an ease of transition across thresholds between inside and out, while the full-height glazing allows for uninterrupted views beyond. The operable elements of the façade also allow for natural ventilation and a deliberate reduced use of mechanical cooling and ventilation

Mimicking the spirit of the original home, the materiality selected speaks to the traditional beach shack in one way but also acts as a contemporary and more permanent reinterpretation in another. The cost-effective and innovative use of insitu textured concrete references the traditional timber build and frames the exterior volume, while a freeform sandstone feature wall centres the interior and incorporates the fireplace and adjoins the timber stair. This feature becomes the spine of the home and the internal experience, engaging with it through vertical movement and in a provider of warmth. Oak joinery and natural timber elements add variation and depth, both internally and externally. While the timber counterbalance the masonry features, the openness of the glass is contrasted to the warmth of the interiors, setting the tone for the owner’s vintage mid-century pieces to fill the interior.

While the timber elements counterbalance the masonry features, the openness of the glass is contrasted to the warmth of the interiors, setting the tone for the owner’s vintage mid-century pieces to fill the spaces.

PR House beautifully responds to its site and location through references to materiality, texture and appropriateness. Architects Ink has created a home of classical proportions intended to endure.

The cost-effective and innovative use of insitu textured concrete references the traditional timber build and frames the exterior volume, while a freeform sandstone feature wall centres the interior and houses the fireplace and adjoins the timber stair.

Mimicking the spirit of the original home, the materiality selected speaks to the traditional beach shack in one way, but also acts as a contemporary and more permanent reinterpretation.