For this house at Bondi Beach, we used two of nature’s most wonderful materials to express the curved shapes of the roof and walls, forms which are drawn from the sand, cliffs and ocean in this locality.

Because it curved in two directions, the roof is copper.

The exterior wall cladding needed to be able to express the curved forms we sought, but also had to be attractive and resilient. Western Red Cedar was used, lime washed to tone down and refine its rawness, and to suggest more fluidity and subtlety in the curve.

WRC was used in a more robust form for the front door and interior walls, expressing a layering and stratification found in the landscape of Sydney’s sandstone cliffs.

For the stair treads, our client, who is a builder, liked the tone and warmth of structural laminated timber (LVL) beams, so we used these laid on their side.

The flooring is Southern Bluegum, selected for its hardness and mid-blond colour. This timber was used for the Opera House floors, because of its hardness, which is 12 on Jenka scale (compared to 9 for Blackbutt).