St Andrews Beach Villa

Building amongst the sand dunes and on the edge of a delicate national park ecosystem requires a discrete sensitivity gained over time. Showing an acute and intense awareness of every living and climatic detail of the Southern Coast of Australia’s Mornington Peninsula, St Andrews Beach Villa arrives at a sympathetic balance between architecture and nature. 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, St Andrews villa has settled into its natural and adjusted landscape to become one with its overall context. Located on a site that bears the extreme pounding of uninterrupted wind patterns and rejoices in sensational weather formations with glorious shifting clouds, the home meshes seamlessly with its coastal setting. Both framing and becoming part of the undulating landscape, St Andrews improvises and adjusts its personality by performing to various shaded sequences in response to the quickly changing weather patterns. The project commenced in 1999 and was built across three main phases. Beginning as a humble elevated timber clad shack, the dwelling was updated 13 years later with an outdoor north-facing pool and cabana that provide wind protection from the elements. Finally, in 2019, the main stair under croft was added. This addition increased the bedroom capacity to five and included an exit connecting the lower level to the sand dunes, as well as providing dual living separation. The graduation from shack to villa defines St Andrews as an evolution of incremental tunings – responding to both the increasing understanding of the context over time and the growing demands of the occupying family. The progressive design acknowledges and accepts the gradual weathering of materials in the extreme salt blasted atmosphere – with hard wood jarrah timber and non-ferrous metals aging in sympathy with the local windblown tea-tree and native grass vegetation. Inspired by the beauty of home’s ongoing deterioration across time, material selections and details celebrate the temporality of all things. A deliberate juxtaposition of eroded and resilient surfaces of mundane and exquisite materials reflect a sensitivity of a beguiling nature - celebrating the temporal nature of decay. Pre-rusted internal linings from the homes earlier iterations have found new life as wall surfaces and intricate joinery components and rare, weathered timber has been re-used internally. Faithfull commitment to re-use is also seen in the reincarnation of plate steel stair balustrade handrails into folded library tables and firewood stores, and in the large basin benches that combine a sharp material contrast of stainless steel, rusted black steel, galvanised steel and stone. Indifferent to a singular designed process, this progressive design evolution ensured the building was both tuned to its users and its environment. With the haste at which we are building projects and occupying the earth’s surface in modern times, St Andrews villa makes a compelling case for slow projects that surpass the intent of their original conception by being allowed to age.