South Arm House | Rosevear Stephenson

This new holiday house is located on a vacant, cleared and benched-out site on the lower side of the street and above Fort Beach at South Arm.

Conceptually the architecture consists of two main elements:

Cradle (refuge) – a two storey L shaped wall: provides privacy and defendable space to the street and the uphill neighbours to the south.

Threshold (prospect) – a framework of blade walls on a ledge and capped with a concrete capital: creates an interface between inside and outside, provides shade, acknowledges the mountain and river, and gives some additional privacy to certain rooms from passers by on the street.

The expression is robust and unapologetic, designed to provide a counterpoint to the delicate Sheoaks in the coastal reserve and the recently planted native garden. The materiality is long lasting and low maintenance, two pillars of sustainable design.