St Andrews Beach Villa

by Woods Bagot

Located 87 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, Australia, St Andrews Beach is a tiny coastal village on the southern coast of the Mornington Peninsula. Nestled among sand dunes facing the wild waters of Bass Strait, the St Andrews Beach Villa sits on the edge of a delicate national park ecosystem. The site suffers the extreme pounding of uninterrupted wind patterns and rejoices in sensational weather formations with glorious shifting cloud formations. Building in this location requires a discrete sensitivity. It takes acute and intense awareness of every living detail including all the seasonal nuances and frequently changing weather conditions to arrive at a sympathetic balance.

A sensitive, enduring response Retrospective and contemporary, the villa demonstrates the enduring potential of architecture and its ability to respond to climatic and natural sand dune diversity. After 20 years of incremental and major additions, various manipulations and with a weather-worn patina, the St Andrews Beach Villa has settled into its natural and adjusted landscape to become one with its overall context. Both framing, and becoming part of, the undulating landscape, the villa improvises and adjusts its personality by performing to various shaded sequences in response to the quickly changing weather patterns. The main idea is one of linkages and responses to its context as a dialogue and exchange between nature and building.