Inspired by Geology - Castle Cove House by Terroir

Castle Cove, Sydney, NSW, Australia

A concrete shell of irregular geometry, informed by the landscape’s tectonics, steps out and around the contours of Castle Cove House. Reminiscent of Californian mid-century architecture, Terroir responds to site with boldness.

Playing on a narrative of the evolution of the varied aesthetic of the Sydney home, Castle Cove House deconstructs the anticipated response to site through identifying its many parts and their engagement with the landscape. Much like many of its neighbours, the site is steep, providing both challenges for construction and opportunities for vistas and outward-facing views. Terroir has taken cues from the Californian mid-century home as the basis for their response. The resulting extraction of form, expressed through varying concrete planes, creates a sense of place, identity and expression of its owners while adding an unexpected sculptural element to its surroundings.

Internally, the expression of the form is left almost uninterrupted, allowing for that sense of place to continue. Dotted with integrated joinery and storage elements, warm timber opposes the coolness of the concrete materiality, while still allowing the building to breathe. The inherent thermal mass properties of concrete were selected specifically. Together with hydronic under-floor heating, generous overhangs, cross ventilation and double glazing, the entire home is designed to create a thermally stable internal environment, requiring minimal active power consumption.

Castle Cove House deconstructs the anticipated response to site through identifying its many parts and their engagement with the landscape.

Internally, the expression of the form is left almost uninterrupted, allowing for that sense of place to continue.

Together with Pascale Gomes-McNabb Design, the interior and styling direction is driven by the spirit of the mid-century design, and in particular the work of John Lautner. There is a purposed connection to the landscape through the large glazed openings, further emphasising the monumental and wonderous nature of the landscape. The use of mirror, steel and brass then allows for an interconnection with the bold overarching concrete form, and for an activated engagement with the interior spaces, through movement and patina. The integration of overhead openings and skylights serve to expand and express the scale of the building.

The entire home is designed to create a thermally stable internal environment.

Built in combination with Callanan Constructions and Oldings Constructions, Castle Cove House takes heed from its complicated and layered landscape, mimicking and articulating formality and allowing for an integrating within it. Terroir uses the sandstone geology as the foundation basis for this expressive response to its unique site and proposes an irregular and audacious extension of its locale. The resulting aspirational form expresses everything from the mighty escarpments to the minor ripples of the bedrock through the varying scale of its detailing. Although clearly a new and imposed element on the site, in essence, the deliberateness of the form resulting from these gestures mimics a geological formation that could have been unearthed from the site itself.

Together with Pascale Gomes-McNabb Design, the interior and styling direction is driven by the spirit of the mid-century design, and in particular the work of John Lautner.