A fabulous location, accessible ocean views and a friendly street were great building blocks for architect Lisa Papesch to design a family friendly home in Gerringong. And what Lisa has masterfully created, using a strong and timeless material palette, is a beautiful new home that can only be described as a gorgeous gem, oozing style and spirit.
Welcomed by calming ocean views at the front door, Lisa has produced a liveable home that allows its young and growing family to fully engage with the views, their friends and family. Based on a strong and simple spine, the home’s design sees the bedrooms and a parent’s private terrace on the top floor, with open plan kitchen, living and entertaining areas below.
While privacy wasn’t a defining element, Lisa designed a semi-permeable spine of timber fins for the street view, creating light-filled yet private bedrooms. By doing so, Lisa has also cleverly created tension between the home’s strong anchoring elements (of weathered Tonka timber cladding and handmade K58 Kolumba™ bricks), and the horizontality of the floor and roof planes.
“What I particularly loved about the Kolumba™ bricks, because they are particularly low and horizontal and beautiful, is that they accentuate the horizontality that I was trying to achieve with long, low lines”, says Lisa. “And the fact that each one is like a piece of artwork in itself is just divine; each brick is totally handmade and individual.”
In fact, Lisa’s choice of materials not only perfectly suits the relaxed Gerringong environs, but celebrates the beauty of age: “I like weathered timber because it celebrates age. It shows that it doesn’t have to be brand spanking new to look great and that’s something that we should all be embracing. And because we were having the weathered-off timber, the artisan nature of the handmade Petersen bricks makes them very timeless, too,” says Lisa.
What’s more, her clients just love the Petersen bricks. And so does Lisa. The Kolumba™ (K58) bricks were used in areas of greatest impact – contributing to the timeless material palette of the front exterior, and bringing warmth and character to the fireplace in the living room.
But, as far as Lisa’s concerned, the most outstanding aspect of this Gerringong gem is that the owners still absolutely love it, two years on. “My client told me that every day she still just says to herself, ‘I just love where I live,’” says Lisa. And that is the ultimate mark of a job very well done.
For more information on this project or Petersen bricks, please contact Robertson’s Building Products on +613 8199 9599.
Product: Kolumba™ K58 handmade bricks
Architect: Papesch Architecture
Photographer: Peter Izzard Photography
Builder: Lime Building Group