CplusC Architectural Workshop was engaged to create a modest home in Sydney’s Palm Beach for a semi-retired couple, their three teenage children, and friends.
After 20 years away from their home in Sydney, CplusC’s clients wanted to embrace the local landscape on their bushland site.
They envisioned a modest, compact home that blended with the surrounding trees and where they could recharge in the canopy among sunlight, foliage, and birdsong.
With a tight budget, the proposed construction system needed to be quick to assemble and repetitive in nature to minimise supervisor site visits, requests for information (RFIs) to the architectural team, and onsite labour costs.
The house also needed to be easy to maintain for the visiting owners.
Having worked with CplusC before on their Iron Maiden House, their clients were extremely open-minded and trusted us deeply to design and build their homes.
This project, Balmy Palmy House, celebrates the pleasures of modesty and the simple life.
Firmly planted on a steep and rocky slope, this intimate little Palm Beach home suspends you in a bushland canopy.
Immersed in the sunshine, trees, breezes, and birdlife, the relaxed holiday feel invites you to recharge.
The Site
The site was vacant bushland on the Palm Beach peninsula, 40 kilometres from Sydney CBD.
On a steep, rocky slope, a lack of stable subsoil presented a landslide risk.
So the structure needed to be either excavated into rock or built on concrete pier footings drilled into Hawkesbury sandstone strata, sharing space with a council-protected Port Jackson fig tree and other mature trees.
With a tight budget, the design needed to be simple to reduce complexity, construction time, and regular site visits.
A Meccano Set
CplusC decided to use a partially prefabricated system to reduce construction time and cost.
The builders they selected simply slotted the pre-made timber posts and beams into three steel axis nodes and bolted them in place, a bit like assembling a Meccano set.
Without site measure, there’s always a risk that something won’t fit.
But CplusC were confident in their team’s exactitude and given their accountability for both design and build, judged it a calculated risk.
Construction went exactly as planned and was complete within a year.
The Design
The temptation at such a scenic site is to go big to guzzle up the views, often requiring tree lopping, excavation, rock sawing, and extensive retaining wall construction.
CplusC’s vision was to keep the house humble and receptive to its environment and to plant it proudly in the ground on bored concrete piers.
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom home is a simple timber structure floating above the steep land.
Oversized timber columns and beams contrast the lightweight roof and stilt legs.
Extensive outdoor decking connects all the home’s spaces and the areas for sitting, relaxing, and gathering.
Lying suspended in the treetops on a cargo net bay, people can drink in the canopy.
Floating Among The Trees
Ascending the stone stairs and spiral staircase, you enter a secluded space suffused with light and leaves and open to the air.
With a soundscape of bird calls, it’s like being in a treehouse.
Glimpses of the beach, jetty, and Pittwater village shift behind foliage.
The kitchen, living room, bathroom, and two bedrooms are stacked along the outward-looking building.
With no hallway, you’re in nature whenever you leave a room.
Sustainable
The ‘Meccano set’ design had a multiplier effect in reducing embodied energy; firstly by minimising steel in favour of timber.
Pre-fabricating components offsite reduced material deliveries and waste pickups.
The simple construction also reduced trips by builders, architects, and project managers to Palm Beach, considered remote by Sydney standards.
The house is built from low-maintenance materials with low embodied energy, primarily timber and corrugated iron.
Careful orientation brings sunlight inside year-round and sliding doors and louvres provide cross-ventilation.
Bathrooms and irrigation systems use rainwater, and there’s a Tesla car charger.
Both CplusC and their clients are justifiably proud of this project’s sustainability credentials, including:
- Prefabricated construction method featuring steel flitch posts and beams – the timber component dramatically reduces the embodied energy
- Large sliding doors, highlight louvres, and thoughtful building orientation optimise cross ventilation
- Thermal mass, insulation, and passive solar strategies are carefully considered to achieve a comfortable environment year-round
- Tesla battery car charger
- Rainwater tank supplies bathrooms and irrigation systems
The project was not without its challenges as Clinton Cole of CplusC explains:
“It’s a challenging site.
We had to ground the house on a rocky escarpment and dance around five mature trees.
Carving the house into the hill wasn’t an option – why excavate the very landscape we’re celebrating?
So, we decided to plant it proudly in the ground on bored concrete piers.
This contradicts one of architecture’s most famous sayings: that ‘buildings should touch the earth lightly’.
But of course, buildings don’t do that – the construction of buildings produces 40 percent of the world’s waste.
The design compensates by dramatically reducing embodied energy using a partially prefabricated building system – a bit like a Meccano set.
The home is humble in scale, celebrating a simple way of life immersed in the view and the natural surroundings. The design was all about firmly planting the home in the canopies, opening it up to the sunshine, leaves, breeze, and birdlife…. a design that celebrates the pleasures in modesty.”
The clients were rapt.
“When CplusC took us through their design concepts for the house we loved the simplicity – it was exactly what we wanted.”
Project Details
Project Size – 94 m2
Site Area – 1,136 m2
Completion Date – 2021
Building Levels – 1
Project Team
Design and Construction
CplusC Architectural Workshop
Founded in 2005 and led by architect Clinton Cole, CplusC specialises in designing and delivering site-specific architectural projects.
Arborists
Urban Arbor
Urban Arbor is a dedicated team of consulting arborists that specialize in all aspects of tree management.
Town Planning
Damian O’Toole Town Planning
Damian O’Toole has an extensive professional planning background.
He has developed good working relationships with inner Sydney Councils, often providing services to these Councils.
Damian also possesses qualifications relating to Heritage Conservation and has developed an understanding and awareness of requirements relating to Heritage matters.
Quantity Surveying
QS Plus
QS Plus are quantity surveyors that provide a range of services including cost planning, value management, tender evaluation, and pre-design and planning advice.
Geotechnical Engineering
Witt Engineering
Established in 2002, Witt Consulting provides expert engineering design advice to both the public and private sectors.
Photography
Well-established photographers including Murray Fredericks, Renata Dominik, and Michael Lassman contributed images.
Photo Gallery
Click on a thumbnail image to enlarge.
Design © 2022 Clinton Cole. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2022 Murray Fredericks, Renata Dominik, Michael Lassman. All Rights Reserved.
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