Bellevue Hill House by Geoform Design Architects

Geoform Design Architects is proud to present this recently completed project, located in Bellevue Hill of Sydney, NSW.

Architect: Geoform Design Architects
Location: Bellevue Hill, Australia
Year: 2018
Photography: Kat Stanley

From the architect: The Initial client had sold the site to present owners who continued with the same project team, and a modified brief, necessitating a return to local council, a 9-year labour of love. Over this period saw extensive remodelling of the existing 70’s modernist house by Gergely and Pinter Architects.

Hidden from the street frontage, access to the battle-axe block is via a landscaped avenue acting as a prelude to the design. The site enjoys north westerly prospect toward to the Sydney Harbour Bridge which has served as a driver for internal programming.

The existing monolithic 70’s design, with its own eccentric formality, supplied the platform for the design parameters, which was extended & eroded into its current form, integrating new ideas of sustainable estate living. The client’s emotional brief reflects a beguiling and memorable experience founded upon their well-travelled and eccentric sensibilities. This was translated through the lens of Mediterranean and Asian resort living which provided the conceptual platform for the design.

The overall exterior architectural forms took geometric and formal cues from key elements in its natural setting which then transformed into the interior with a layered, eclectic and rich patina of materiality. Guided by the architectural brief, the design sought to blur edges, provide delicate detailing invoking the P&O style, and create a spatial flow between interior and exterior by using simple and sophisticated geometries with minimal detailing.

The home incorporates five-bedroom suites, each with bathroom and walk-in robe, a self-contained studio, an office, and vast living spaces. The primary living environment opens to the north via a central double volume atrium lit by upper-level skylights. The primary terrace links the open plan living environment with a freeform concrete & steel cabana, a large pool with a 17m glass-bottomed pond feature, and a Peter Fudge designed garden, around a century old Norfolk Island Pine tree. A rich and complex kitchen experience opens up to the exotic and viridian coloured pool environment and the sculpture setting beyond.

Using the Harbour Bridge as an aesthetic reference, the skin of the exterior architectural form harmonises between the Micaceous Iron Oxide steel work that embodies both heavy and light elements and the quiet strength of an off-form concrete sub-frame in clear but overlapping geometries. This tectonic strength is then softened and enlivened through a controlled material palette as one moves further within the house, culminating in emotional extravaganza in the most private spaces. 

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