Naturally Textural and Open – Tessellated House by Matt Elkan Architect

Replacing an existing beachside cottage, Tessellated House optimises its coastal position and responds to its context with considered thoughtfulness and rigour. Matt Elkan Architect has combined a naturally textural and open approach to create a home connected to its site.

In its enviable coastal locale, Tessellated House plays on its expressed built elements within its natural context and creates a counterbalance between the built form and its surrounding landscape. The site was the previous resting place of the family’s pre-existing 1950s cottage home, and the new iteration offers a more durable and relevant occasional residence. Responding foremost to its location, the home is deliberately open, encouraging an inflow of ventilation and access to natural light. Imagined as a subversive and reductive built form, the exterior is encased in a dark palette, allowing the landscape to be highlighted. The internal approach then speaks to a familiar contemporary condition of open planned living and light and natural finishes. Matt Elkan Architect brings a consideration to light, shadow and thermal performance.

Allowing the home to open up and encourage a natural flow of air within the connected zones, sliding timber screens not only create an identifiable façade but offer functional benefits at the same time.

Built by Avalon Constructions, together with joinery by Luke Geercke Cabinetmakers and landscape by Form Landscaping and Hulton Larson Landscape Architects, Tessellated House is at its heart a collaborative effort. Located on Sydney’s Northern Beaches in Newport, the house is located set back and protected from the sea edge. Sitting nestled between the slopes of Bilgola Plateau and the coastal dunes, the home offers a dual frontage which is expressed through its operable façade elements, allowing a full immersion within its location. Allowing the home to open up and encourage a natural flow of air within the connected zones, sliding timber screens not only create an identifiable façade but offer functional benefits at the same time.

Comprised of a natural and hardy palette, Tessellated House sees concrete, steel, sandstone and Australian hardwood come together on site. Spread over two levels, the incorporation of openings into the home to allow natural illumination was a key element of the brief and results in the creation of three key outdoor private areas. Each is designed as an extension of the internal zone, allowing a spill over past the building edge. Unlike its casual coastal surrounds, the floor plan is comprised of a series of linear elements that come together in a grid, where each room is the same width and length, creating a module-type arrangement. As the home opens up, the overarching intention is for the home to feel submerged within the garden, and key openings allow this feeling of immersion to be evident throughout.

Matt Elkan Architect has created a sanctuary of sorts, softened by the extensive use of timber and grounding the home in its location.

Tessellated House both responds and counters its context, offering structure amongst its organic landscape and lush greenery. Matt Elkan Architect has created a sanctuary of sorts, softened by the extensive use of timber and grounding the home in its location.