Chenchow Little Architects ‘Stewart House’ in one of the case studies featured in Materiality 2021, located in Palm Beach on a ridge overlooking the McKay Reserve, a gully which is significant for its EEC of the Pittwater Spotted Gym Forest.

The places the site within a bushfire ‘Flame Zone’, and its designs and materials were oriented towards meeting stringent requirements of the bushfire code. In addition, there was much consideration for the environment in its construction.

The house plan is arranged simply around a central corridor, with bedrooms to each side and an open living space at the rear overlooking the reserve. It is shaped as a series of textured rectilinear volumes, stepping down the sloping site in split levels. Inside, the feeling is of seclusion within its bush setting, despite its close proximity to neighbouring dwellings. The bedrooms have fans, and cross-ventilation comes from the central courtyards adjoining each of them.

Materials were chosen based on their fire-resistance properties and thermal mass. The walls are made entirely of insulated face bricks, floors are stone tiles (travertine) on concrete slabs, and the roof is fire rated and well insulated. The external bushfire shutters also provide shade during the summer.

The brick walls incorporate horizontal bands of 50mm bricks, and a ‘hit- and-miss’ screen to the external courtyards and terraces. This provides privacy while still allowing the breeze to pass through. The walls for the swimming pool and its coping are made in the same way.

These walls are overlaid with high steel I-beams and closely spaced Z-purlins which support the roof. These beams also span the entire building and playfully extend beyond the façade. The brickwork patterns and repetition of the beams give a sense of lightness to the strong textures and rectangular forms of the building as a whole.

The off-white dwelling spaces and swimming pool contrast with the surrounding greenery, like abstract objects emerging from the landscape. Veneer joinery used throughout is made from locally-sourced spotted gum, in reference to the local Reserve.

The scale and planning of this single- storey dwelling is deliberately smaller than the large houses typical of this area. This, combined with its split- level design, has minimised the amount of excavation required. The material palette used is simple, mainly chosen for their longevity and are locally sourced. The external brick walls require no paint coating, and will develop a weathered patina as they age.

Sunlight streams into the house through discreet highlight windows on the northern and southern elevations, and through the screened central courtyards. Besides the ample natural lighting during the day, LED and fluorescent lights are used throughout the house to minimise energy usage at night.

Rainwater is harvested in a 9250L storage tank for use in the toilets, laundry and garden, which has been planted with endemic species. The native flora relates the dwelling place to its environment, and also because they are adapted to minimal water requirements.

This story was first published in Materiality 2021, a third in a series of books by Brickworks.

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A modest home with a quiet sense of luxury, Albury House incorporates a ‘robust and direct’ material palette comprised of concrete blocks, cement, concrete slabs and ply to create a minimalist design that complements the breathtaking views of the mountains beyond.

Kerstin Thompson selected GB Masonry concrete blocks in Nickel as the predominant building material for Albury House for their incredible greyscale colour palette, as well as their various practical benefits. Building on a site with a high bushfire risk, it was important for the owners to create a home that could withstand fire, as well as the temperature extremes that come with living in a regional area such as Albury in NSW.

Made from non-combustible materials, GB Masonry blocks are fire resistant, making them the ideal building material for bushfire prone areas. Due to their mass, concrete masonry blocks also slow the transfer of external temperature fluctuations into internal living areas, thereby reducing the need for artificial heating and cooling devices.

With the intention of creating an environmentally responsive building envelope, Kerstin Thompson also incorporated other aspects of Passive Solar Design into the home, including flyscreens, louvres, perforated cement sheet screens and sliding glass walls to adapt to the extremes of Albury’s climatic variation.

Albury House

Kerstin Thompson Architects

GB Masonry Smooth in Nickel

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“We carefully designed its form and the shape of the roof to work with the sun angles so that in winter the sun goes deep into the main living room and in summer the worst of the sun is blocked.”

“We carefully designed its form and the shape of the roof to work with the sun angles so that in winter the sun goes deep into the main living room and in summer the worst of the sun is blocked.”

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MMAD’s Michael Montgomery opted for breeze blocks to add a playful element to his redesign of a Melbourne home.

The concrete block, widely used on Australian building sites from the 1950s onwards, is seriously cool again.

A new generation of stylish concrete blocks and decorative breeze blocks is winning over the nation’s top architects, who value their versatility, sustainability and aesthetic appeal.

GB Masonry Honed Blocks and Breeze Blocks were used throughout the residence’s interior and exterior

Bentleigh House

By MMAD Architecture

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Naomi Stead, professor of architecture at Monash University and a self-confessed ‘blockhead’, says that breeze blocks were ubiquitous in post-war Australia before falling out of fashion.

“Now their fortunes have turned again and architects, for the moment at least, can’t get enough of them,” she says.

Commentators such as Professor Stead believe that breeze blocks offer architects an ornamental palette which happens to suit today’s pared-back, minimalist design aesthetic.

“The return of the breeze block is a story about ornament,” she says. “Many contemporary architects are exploring new modes of surface and material ornament, and it’s easy to see the return of the breeze block as part of this movement.”

Michael Montgomery, principal architect at MMAD in Melbourne, chose GB Masonry Breeze Blocks to add a playful and decorative element to his redesign for Bentleigh House, a Californian bungalow in the city’s south-east.

“A driver of the design for Bentleigh House was to create interest through the play of texture and light, and, more importantly, utilising natural materials that evoked an artisan touch.”

“A driver of the design for Bentleigh House was to create interest through the play of texture and light, and, more importantly, utilising natural materials that evoked an artisan touch.”

“A driver of the design for Bentleigh House was to create interest through the play of texture and light, and, more importantly, utilising natural materials that evoked an artisan touch,” he explains.

Breeze blocks, from the GB Masonry range, were used to screen the butler’s pantry from the rest of the living zones but without separating the spaces visually. The Union Jack pattern was a cheeky nod to the client’s English background.

Apart from breeze blocks the reborn Bentleigh House makes extensive use of honed masonry blocks – on both external and internal walls – to add texture and warmth to the building.

“Staggering the lays, using various size blocks and shapes and projecting the lay of blocks to cast shadow combine to create texture and interest from various points of view without introducing other materials or colours,” he says.“While often considered a cold material, the tones of the honed blocks brought a warmth to the living spaces.”

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Unlike the standard grey concrete blocks of yesteryear, the GB Masonry collection uses the latest technology to create modern masonry products in a variety of finishes, sizes and colours.

By adding oxides, fine aggregates and coloured sands to its mix of raw materials, GB Masonry, part of the Brickworks Building Products Group, produces a masonry block which combines aesthetic appeal with strong environmental credentials.

GB Masonry products are not only weather-resistant, they offer excellent sound insulation and impressive thermal mass, reducing heating and cooling costs for property owners.

While Michael Montgomery was excited by the aesthetic possibilities of using masonry blocks in the Bentleigh House, he was also impressed by their excellent thermal and insulation qualities – an important consideration given Melbourne’s harsh winters.

“While the upfront cost of the honed masonry block is higher than some other products, this was outweighed by the benefits of longevity, low maintenance and low environmental footprint combined with their aesthetic beauty,” he says.

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When the owners of a modest clifftop property in the beachside Sydney suburb of Avalon decided to demolish their house and commission a new one, they knew better than to try to compete with the captivating location.

“Almost any new building you’ll see on a Sydney headland really stands out, often to the detriment of the surrounding area,” says architect Rob Brown of Casey Brown. “The clients didn’t want that. They asked for something that was moulded into the landscape.”

Premium long-line Italian clay bricks clad the interior and exterior of this seaside residence

Bangalley House

By Casey Brown Architecture

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Over a period of several years, Brown and his clients painstakingly conceptualised a house that complemented the headland’s rugged cliffs and respected the site’s topography and natural features. Old-growth trees and boulders strewn around the property were to remain in place, and the land was not to be levelled.

The resulting building comprises a series of stepped, staggered and linked pavilions, each clad in distinctive dark-hued San Selmo Corso bricks from Austral Bricks.

The bricks, which are handmade in Venice, are longer and skinnier than their Australian counterparts, lending the Avalon residence a distinctive European look.

“San Selmo Corso bricks are also incredibly well fired,” says Brown. “That gives them an extra durability for the salt-laden air and also gives them lovely smokey tones, which help them blend with the sandstone and shale cliffs and rocks all around.”

“The exterior needed to have a certain toughness and durability about it, and these bricks certainly achieved that”

“The exterior needed to have a certain toughness and durability about it, and these bricks certainly achieved that”

For the interior walls, Brown and his clients again opted for San Selmo Corso bricks, this time in white. “We were keen to continue the distinctive form of the bricks inside and maintain that continuity,” he explains.

“The white bricks create a lovely contrast with the smokey blacks and greys on the outside and, because each brick has a distinct patina, they also tell a wonderful story as the sun moves around the house throughout the day, bouncing off the walls.”

Further enhancing the interior are ceilings panelled in richly coloured South American timber and floors laid with Italian stone. “The floor slabs are an Italian conglomerate, which is a type of stone that is made up of other stones, all cemented together naturally,” Brown says. “Like the bricks, each floor slab is unique, which gives the interior real texture and authenticity.”

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The team at Casey Brown knew from an early stage that brickwork would be an important feature of the Avalon residence. But the “perfect brick” proved elusive until, one day, a member of Brown’s staff happened to walk past the Brickworks showroom in the Sydney CBD on his way to the office.

Brown recalls: “He came to me and said: ‘I’ve just seen the most unbelievable bricks. They look like charcoal logs.’ So we raced back to the showroom. We were told the bricks wouldn’t be available for another nine months – the showroom had just a couple of samples. But we decided that we simply had to have them.”

Now that the project is complete, Brown says: “It’s hard to imagine it constructed from any other material.” He adds: “The exterior needed to have a certain toughness and durability about it, and these bricks certainly achieved that.”

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The owners of this 1960’s bungalow in Sydney found themselves in that very predicament, and engaged the team at Those Architects to help them find a way out of it. ‘The owners wanted more room for their two young girls- a bedroom each and a second play area – as well as a courtyard for entertaining and a pool,’ says Simon Addinall, director of Those Architects.

The house sits on an oddly shaped, steeply sloping block, limiting the useable space. Inside, the floor plan was a series of disconnected rooms with small windows and no access to the outside. Simon and his team devised a clever plan: a new brick addition dubbed ‘the tower.’

At the top of the tower are the girls’ bedrooms and shared bathroom, with a family room, laundry and guest bathroom downstairs. In the bungalow, the layout was reworked to include an open-plan kitchen/dining/living area. Together, they form an L shape surrounding a north-facing courtyard with access from both structures. An elevated pool sits above the courtyard, effectively enclosing and sheltering this central area.

Bowral Bricks in Gertrudis Brown were used throughout this residence

House Lincoln

By THOSE Architects

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Many of the home’s original features that the couple first fell in love with remain, including the red brickwork, elaborate cornices and a bay window in the main bedroom. These details also informed some elements in the tower, namely the bullnosed brick corners and timber balustrade, along with the living room’s vaulted ceilings.

‘Successful design balances functionality and aesthetics- you cant have one without the other,’ says Simon. ‘Here, the fixtures and fittings are deliberately understated and the choice of materials is consistent throughout, with the aim of celebrating the architecture, not dominating or overpowering it.’

“Successful design balances functionality and aesthetics- you cant have one without the other”

“Successful design balances functionality and aesthetics- you cant have one without the other”

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Architect Sarah Bryant is a firm believer that bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. It’s the ethos of her practice, Bryant Alsop, and this Melbourne home is proof positive that the approach works.

The Edwardian house had been extended in the 1990’s, but the addition was awkward and covered in an unappealing lemon-coloured render. The structure was sound, however, so Sarah and her team took great pains to consider what could be retained and reused.

Capitol Red bricks by Bowral Bricks were utilised for this residence

Pine Street House

By Bryant Alsop Architecture

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It was important to the gregarious, community-minded owners, a couple with two school-age children, that the house be suited to entertaining. Their biggest frustration was an odd mezzanine level that impacted the ceiling height of the kitchen below. Sarah’s plan was to open up and reconfigure the existing layout to create more room for guests to mingle.

Removing the mezzanine opened the space up and allowed for the inclusion of a double-height window for views to the garden. The result is an expansive, open-plan environment with robust, semi-industrial appeal. ‘The owners wanted a home that felt warm and solid featuring brick, concrete and timber- nothing delicate,’ says Sarah. ‘This is a place for real family living.’

“‘The owners wanted a home that felt warm and solid featuring brick, concrete and timber- nothing delicate.’”

“‘The owners wanted a home that felt warm and solid featuring brick, concrete and timber- nothing delicate.’”

The materials palette is the star of the kitchen. The oversized island bench is made from Bowral Bricks dry-pressed bricks in Capitol Red and topped with concrete. The splashback, in geometric feature tiles by Patricia Urquiola, and surrounding joinery, in blackbutt veneer and black laminate, complement the island beautifully. Nearby, a large, deep window creates a servery to the adjacent deck; this new relationship with the garden is one the family has wholeheartedly embraced.

At 260 square metres, the home is relatively compact. But thanks to Sarah’s thoughtful design tweaks, it looks and feels generous. ‘Houses don’t need to be huge, they just meed to be well designed. Its so important to preserve outdoor spaces- and that means not building up to 80 per cent of the block as regulations allow.’

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The home needed to block out the noise from nearby roads and planes flying overhead, and honour the kitchen as the main heartbeat where conversations take place and special connections are made. Carter Williamson set out to transform a tight 5-metre-wide block into a home that balances practicality with a circulation sequence that sprinkles a little bit of magic.

“Concrete Blonde is an architectural jewellery box,” explains Ben Peake, Associate at Carter Williamson and Lead Architect on the project. “The house unfolds and reveals itself from a tight 5m wide heritage facade with a south-facing yard into a generous, light-filled, and warm home.” Inside, warmth is expressed through earthy tones and natural materials, with natural light captured through the skylights and the courtyard well.

An arresting curved linear void is the hero of the new extension. It sits above the living area and carries northern light from a high window deep into the interior. “We often use skylights and voids to deal with the challenges of planning and less than ideal orientations,” says Peak.

The living space flows into the kitchen and dining area, with sliding glass doors visually dissolving to connect the interior with the rear courtyard designed in collaboration with Landscape Architect Melissa Wilson.

These four spaces merge into a seamless indoor-outdoor space – the new heart of the home. “To facilitate light, a tile-lined and plant-filled courtyard is the mediator between the homes’ living and private spaces,” says Peake. One side of the courtyard addresses the main living area, while the other brings light to the bathroom and stairwell.

Upstairs, the main bathroom, located in a space that was once a bedroom, contains a hidden laundry and expected individual functions like the toilet, basin and shower. Each one was subdivided into micro-spaces and celebrated with curved tiling alcoves. “These small gestures hug you as you use the space, diving the large room into smaller areas,” explains Peake.

The home’s robust palette is a direct response to the client brief, which called for a no-nonsense interior that felt warm and inviting. “They wanted polished concrete, exposed brick, natural timber and stainless steel to feature within the home, but wanted to keep a feeling of elegance and clever detailing,” says Peake.

“Concrete Blonde is an architectural jewellery box,” explains Ben Peake, Associate at Carter Williamson and Lead Architect on the project.

Concrete Blonde

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Concrete and Bowral Chillingham White bricks feature extensively in the new extension alongside custom timber furniture. The Tasmanian oak kitchen cabinet becomes a bench seat for the dining area, while the full-height mint green cabinetry compliments the dark-green leather upholstery.

“The greens through Concrete Blonde are a nod to the native gumtrees swaying in the backyard, the homes former kitchen colour, and memories of our clients extended family homes in Greece,” says Peake. The dining table is a collaboration between Carter Williamson and Will Brennan, an Orange-based furniture designer.

Carter Williamson believe that good architecture is the result of a genuine collaboration between the architect, the client the builder (Andrew Burton Constructions), and honouring everyone’s ideas. Their primary challenge to create a generous, light-filled home on a narrow block with a south-facing backyard, while maintaining the heritage exterior, certainly wasn’t the easiest of briefs.

The team rose to the occasion by delivering a home that utilises every inch of available space to its advantage, with nuances that punch well above the property size. A home that’s equally a vivacious space for social gatherings and a serene sanctuary treasured by the clients.

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1+2 House is home to Vikki, who engaged Curious Practice to design a two-bedroom house with a self-contained studio and connection to the garden. She wanted a home for her children to visit and stay, and a sanctuary for her grandchildren to play in the garden.“The building was to embody the most important things in Vikki’s life, and was more about how she wanted to live and occupy a space, rather than a checklist of rooms or program,” Warren explains.

He describes the building as being “layered, almost labyrinthian or Escher-like,” with overlapping and sheltered internal and external spaces.The modest budget also informed the design concept, as did Vikki’s preference for honest, hardwearing and maintenance-free materials (and a definite dislike for plasterboard). “We were interested in the idea of a ruin or unfinished house. How we can take simple, modest materials and craft them in a way that elevates their importance, leaving them in a raw state so the building can age over time.”1+2 House is built to the front boundary and entered via a front gate into a private garden that captures the northern sun.

Large steps double as seating and provide access to the main house and studio. Another garden sits beyond the garage, and the landscape also opens up at the rear.Curious Practice used materials that are meant to be raw, left natural and unfinished. This reduces the need for maintenance and upkeep and respects that notion that materials will patina with time and wear. Externally, this included masonry blockwork walls and corrugated cladding roof, providing a robust and protective shell. Internally, plywood unifies floors, stairs, built-in furniture, walls and ceiling for a warm and textured interior.

Compressed fibre cement lining is also used where higher resistance is needed.The design team selected Austral GB Masonry Smooth in Porcelain because they can be used structurally and withstand flood waters. “GB Smooth offers the quality finish of a good brick (particularly in the half-height format) but has other added benefits,” says Warren. “The block is strong and robust, but the smooth texture is refined and can be paired with other materials.”

At 1+2 House, the Porcelain colour is a complementary contrast to corrugated cladding, concrete and rough sawn spotted gum.In developing the project and material palette, the design team gathered varied product samples that differed in style, manufacturer, quality, price, colour and texture. “The GB Masonry Smooth in Porcelain stood out as a clear winner for its texture, brightness and consistency of colour,” says Warren.

Curious Practice and the builder, Built by Eli, wanted to show off the craft and skills of the trades and experimented with the masonry blocks in subtle and practical ways. This includes a breezeway pattern on the ground floor and random courses.

Turned blocks serve as external light fixtures, as well as creating shelves for pot plants or hidey-holes for the grandchildren playing in the garden. A stacked course of blocks with the ends cut off conceal downpipes, and two blocks project over garden steps/stepping to provide access to the studio without needing to go through the main dwelling.“We like to look for ways that we can exploit planning controls to create interesting outcomes,” says Warren.

The height between the split floors is just less than 1 metre, which avoids the need for a balustrade. Currently one of Vikki’s son’s lives in the main house with his wife and two children, and Vikki lives in the studio, which has a separate bathroom and kitchenette. “It is nice how the living dynamic from the original brief has changed and the building has been able to adapt,” Warren says.

“The project answers things much larger than the client’s original brief. Beyond environmental resilience, its physical flexibility means it can be adapted in numerous ways, over generations.”

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