Gunyah House
living private°
Gunyah House is a private residence located in Bundeena, NSW, accessed via the Royal National Park. The project was commissioned by Tony & Carol Berg, with architecture by Clinton Murray Architects. Gunyah House was completed in 2010.
Size: 1040sqm
Scope: Concept Design, Tender Documentation, Construction
Gunyah House has been recognised with the following awards:
2007 NSW Architecture Awards, Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
2007 Housing Institute of Australia, Custom Built Home
Beachfront deck with transplanted Kentia grove
Entry walk and steps
1. Settled on the Gunyah beachfront in the Royal National Park (above left)
2. Sydney coastal native garden (below left)
3. The entry steps down from street entry passes through a shaded microclimate (right)
The simplicity of the entrance sequence … offers a subdued response to a dramatic site.
- Jury citation
Natural textural contrast
Entry path from the carport
Outdoor shower under Kentia palms
Landscape sketch plan
Sydney coastal heath plant species typical of the Royal National Park
Beachfront bbq
The garden overlays the rich diversity of the Royal National Park with the clients brief, ‘to be transported to another place’.
Design Statement
This garden is as much about the arrival experience as it is the site and the architecture. The road to this contemporary beach house winds across windswept sandstone heath and through sub-tropical gullies of the Royal National Park. Once at the site, a lawn driveway leads to a cliff top carport overlooking Port Hacking. It is shrouded in mixed endemic shrubs, one of the four microclimatic character gardens of the house below. The garden overlays the rich diversity of the National Park with the clients brief ‘to be transported to another place’. After accommodating functional requirements, natural conditions dictated the design. The response was to immerse the robust architecture in a verdant, permeable native landscape that merges with the adjacent Bundeena Reserve and that’s layered with subtle gestures of cultivation and material relevance. The second microclimate is the exposed cliff edge. A collection of compact native shrubs and groundcovers contrast the naturalistic arrival garden. Moving down, the building is unveiled between tree-fern fronds and a transplanted Port Jackson fig at the base of the cliff. Here is the third microclimate, a protected gully-like shaded zone. Tree ferns are unexpected and provide an intimate, cool front entry. The Fig provides a link between the natural and built forms. At the beachfront, kentia palms have been retained, some repositioned in timber decks for critical shade. Frontline shrub planting creates a protected bbq area and garden adjacent Bundeena Reserve. Collaboration with council on regeneration for the Reserve ensured the scheme was appropriately integrated in its context.
