Eco Living by the Southern Gold Coast
“It feels as though we’re deep in the bush, but we’re actually only ten minutes away from the beach and the southern Gold Coast”, Ash Bee, a choreographer, notes of the 42sqm/452sqft bungalow she shares with her husband Jamieson and their daughter. The family lives in the Currumbin Ecovillage, an award-winning sustainable community near the border where Queensland meets New South Wales. Keen to immerse themselves in the nature and native wildlife that defines that environment, the couple collaborated with Sarah Morley at Ecostruct to design their dream home.
A Machine for Living
Functionality, sustainability, and aesthetics were the core three tenets that defined the design process. “We wanted to create a sustainable and functional but beautiful home that was full of light and air in a compact footprint. But, at the same time, a machine for living”, Bee told Never Too Small. The result is a split-level, single storey home nestled into the sloping landscape that makes efficient use of its simple rectangular floorplan by focusing on creating zones divided by height and soft visual barriers rather than walls. California modernism – inspired by their time living in LA – is the overarching style of the home, but Bee noted how they made a point of giving each area its own function and character to “experience the house in different ways throughout the day”.
The home greets you with a small corridor overlooking the kitchen to one side. The white-washed OSB interior is punctuated by Tasmanian oak and stainless steel trim accents as well as a Tasmanian Blackwood benchtop by Peach Furniture, where they place their keys and things when they get in. With the exception of the volcanic red Japanese ceramic tiles in the bathroom, these three materials are the pillars of the design, appearing in different measures throughout to give each space its unique feel. Just steps away in the kitchen, for example, stainless steel rules the day on appliances, custom benchtops, and IKEA pull-out drawers for storage. To the opposite side of the room, beyond the french doors leading onto the patio, the living room returns the focus to the OSB with the complement of a large built-in banquet that they ensured would be perfect for afternoon naps.
Prioritising what’s Important
Small gestures of personalisation abound throughout the compact home, reflecting the many conversations the couple had examining the little things that had bothered them in previous places they lived. Tensioned wire across the window behind the kitchen sink, for example, was the trick to settling a long-standing debate over how to best dry out the kitchen cloth. “In designing a small space”, Bee recounted, “I think it was really valuable to us to decide what was important to us in our everyday life and prioritise functionality in those spaces. We worked with a mandate of efficiency and not compromise. We have everything we need”, she concluded, adding, “It’s even luxurious to me”.
