Castle Cove House

Castle Cove is a place of steep ravines with tributaries flowing through angophora bushland down to the harbour. The sandstone bedrock takes many forms, from escarpments to minor ripples, while the bushland adjacent is occupied by wallabies, snakes, bush turkeys and other native animals. The house is conceived as a new reverberation across the contours of the site – a new addition but one which could have equally been revealed in excavation. 

The house is built entirely of concrete with a deliberately indeterminate form with no clear geometric figure – powerful on the one hand but equally never challenging the centrality of the landscape.  The platform led to a clear arrangement of program – private functions downstairs and to the rear, and the gathering spaces for the family on the upper level.