House Burch Exemplifies the Architects’ Clarity of Intent

Simon Addinall, co-founder and director of Those Architects, speaks in terms of primal forms of shelter when discussing their work. “Our projects are all like caves, rather than nests, forms from which the spaces are then carved out, as opposed to an elevated layering of multiple materials”.

Such clarity of approach is evident in their latest project, House Burch in Byron Bay. A renovation and extension of an uninspiring 1980s brown brick bungalow, House Burch is at once airy and grounded. Its simple palette of white and blonde timber is utterly befitting expectations of a coastal home. Yet this is balanced by the architects’ approach of ‘carving out’ spaces from solid forms. Appropriate to the harsh climate, the solid brick walls constructed on a slab on ground shelter the inhabitants from the hot sun and cool the building via the substantial thermal mass and cross-ventilation through strategically-placed openings.