Eighties Icon Revisited.

DESIGNING AN ADDITION to a contemporary beach house without intruding upon its bold original form was the challenging brief for Connor and Solomon Architects. The design team achieved their goal and brought a new and engaging aspect to the job: the weekends with million dollar ocean views gained a host of unexpectedly intimate bush and beach vistas &am the new extension, which is much more intimately connected to the site than the elevated existing building.

Perched high on a ridge above Palm Beach, Sydney’s northern-most beach suburb, the unique building boasts a striking octagonal section, with the northern side pushed our slightly to accommodate a northeast-facing terrace. This uncompromisingly geometric building, designed by architect Stan Symonds in the early eighties, remains intact. The new work by Cormor and Solomon is slung underneath a concrete platform within the existing form.
“The original house by Stan Symonds is the most remarkable object on the cliffs," says Paul Connor. “The extension we proposed was aimed at achieving two things. Firstly, it was not to compromise the presence of the original form – a sculptural, brutalist building, which was out of favour for a time but has now regained respect. Secondly, we were to provide the house with a link to its site. We wanted to provide a view of the foreground in relation to the view beyond, i.e. capture the more intimate mid-ground foliage of banksia and bush, and then the beach and ocean beyond ”
The existing house and carpark stand on eight steel-reinforced concrete columns. The architects designed the addition to hang off the four existing concrete columns supportng the car park. They also took advantage of the space underneath the bridge that connects the existing house and carpark. This area was used to provide a link between the lower level of the original house and the new addition.
Big concrete knuckles were designed to attach the two concrete slabs that support the lightweight structure of the addition. “It had to be lightweight because it was hung from the existing structure,” says Paul. “It would have been very expensive to build into the cliff if we had not been able to use the existing structure as a support’
The arrangement was "a bit of an engineering feat” that strengthened, rather than weakened, the existing structure. “Engineer Anglo D’Ambrosio, who advised on the job, says the new addition doesn’t add stress to the original structure but actually helps brace it,” Paul says.
In terms of the layout, the addition almost doubled sleeping space in the weekender. The existing house retained its living and kitchen areas upstairs. On what is now the middle level, the man bedroom and ensuite remained untouched but one of the two smaller bedrooms on this level was enlarged and the existing bathroom refurbished.
A link was established to the addition, directly under the bridge between the main house and the car park. This area also facilitated the staircase linking the two levels of the addition, each level housing a new bedroom and balcony. The east ocean-facing wall abutting the stars was created as a curtain wall to admit light and views. “As you walk down the stairs you walk literally into the landscape for the first time and the landscape appears to be part of the building,” says Paul. A slot window was also placed in the opposite wall of the stairwell, allowing vistas of the bush and ocean through the house from the road “The house started having a permeability it didn’t have before."
The architects have acknowledged the existing six metre concrete columns – which is half inside and half outside one of the extension walls – as an informing element m the formal organisation of the new building. The columns link the two stages of work and provide the new wing with a strong sculptural element. “They imposed an order in the

planning,” Paul says. “Often architects will try to impose their own order on a project, but we didn't need to because it was provided for us. The original structure imposed itself, giving us an incredible sculptural quality which you experience as you move through the building.”
Externally, materials were selected with a view to harmonizing the new and existing buildings. “Our building had to sit happily in context with the original off-form concrete building, so we used compressed fibre cement, which is low maintenance and robust. We’ve expressed the joints so it reads as a lightweight structure.”
The architects’ brief included revisiting the detailing of the existing house. This gave them the opportunity to redesign and renew elements such as glazing, cladding and handrails, allowing them to refine the original house, to dovetail the old and new, and make the existing building safer and more efficient.
For instance, the engineer helped the architect’s design a glazing system robust enough to counter the severe weather loads. A commercial section framing system in anodised aluminium, which brings a grid-like graphic quality to the windows, reinforces the 12 mm laminated glazing. This effect is particularly striking in the south-facing curtain wait of the existing building.
Other detailing included replacing external handrails and introducing frameless glass screens for balustrading. Originally the house had very large section steel tubing for handrails, with limited glasing. The architects designed powder coated steel handrails in a smaller section size, with stainless steel patch fittings to clip to the glass screens.
This difficult brief has resulted in the successful, and respectful, rejuvenation of a house that attained iconic status when it was first constructed. The new whole is more than the sum of its parts, in fact – the purity of the existing form has been retained, while the updated dwelling enjoys a more intimate connection with its surrounds.