Natural Beauty – Shoreham by Borland Architecture
Responding to its stunning waterfront site, Shoreham yields to the organic beauty of the landscape and interprets it with a tactile, distinctly modern touch. Borland Architecture crafts a home of enduring permanence.
Travelling down the long, winding laneway towards Shoreham, one passes by both a refurbished windmill and a set of new stables. There is a rich, welcoming texture to this farmland setting, a sense of homeliness that extends to the Shoreham house itself. As one gets closer to the property, they are struck by its materiality. The house appears as a solid object, obscuring the view of the beach that sits behind it. There is an aura of permanence evoked by its wall-like structure. In the same breath, this solidity also heightens the sense of eagerness to see what sits inside. Highlighted using elegant timber pergola structures and bluestone crazy paving, the entrance to the house is defined by its handcrafted solid timber door, made from sandblasted jetty timber by local craftsman Made By Ben.
Borland Architecture drew on the precision offered by 3D modelling to ascertain where to best situate the building on the expansive farmland site. Set close to the water, both the home’s visual presence from the exterior and the ocean views that populate its interior are maximised. Tailoring the house’s layout to the client – parents of two teenagers, each parent working from home – the architects decided that the best form would be a series of connected pavilions, each sophisticated space given its own unique function. Given the brief that all habitable rooms must face the water, this pavilion arrangement allows the house to embody an unforced serenity, its ingenious floorplan deeply attuned to the natural landscape that surrounds it.
On entering, view that has been withheld on approach is now revealed, as the crazy paved floor directs towards a full-height frameless window with a direct line of site out to Bass Straight. As one moves past the entryway, they may choose to explore the master pavilion. A concrete rendered corridor leads first to the study then to the master bedroom, which has both a walk-in-robe and luxury ensuite. The luxury ensuite includes a freestanding bath by Clearwater, a steam shower and a vast double concrete vanity bench. Every room in this sensuous, delicate space has a full-height window overlooking the ocean, adding an air of tranquillity to its already chic sensibility. To the left of the house’s entrance is the only inward-looking space in Shoreham, a windowless transitional corridor allowing full attention to be given to the clients’ cleverly curated art collection.
At the conclusion of this corridor, alongside the house’s main living pavilion, a cosy library awaits. Though the living pavilion is a large space, the warm stone fireplace and sleek TV unit reduce its sense of scale to something decidedly homely and comfortable. Against a minimal backdrop of light-coloured joinery and select fixtures, the kitchen is defined by its large concrete island bench, the refined benchtops provided by Concrete Collective. This area joins seamlessly Shoreham’s outdoor alfresco area and pool, a calming, easy-to-access nook that encourages sitting back and relaxing in the fresh ocean air. This outdoor haven connects effortlessly to the two children’s rooms and the living area.
Carefully attuned to the needs and rhythms of its inhabitants’ daily life within its walls, Shoreham is robust yet graceful, made to soften over time as the planting matures and the materials naturally age. This is a building that is meant to last, lovingly crafted to accentuate its location, its design defined a simple, forward-thinking intelligence.
