Coastal Residence

The site sits one street back from the water, where salt air arrives before the view. Rather than lift the house into a single glazed lookout, the project begins with shelter. A long, low wall of locally cast concrete runs parallel to the coast and receives the strongest weather. Behind it, domestic rooms gather around three open courts. Each court has a different climate: a dry entry garden of wind-shaped trees, a cool fern court beside the kitchen, and a shallow rain garden that holds monsoon water before it returns to the ground. The sea appears selectively, framed at the end of passages or above the planted wall, so that its presence is felt without asking every room to face it.

The plan is organized as two quiet bars beneath a folded roof. Living spaces occupy the wider seaward bar, while bedrooms sit in the protected inner volume. Between them, a breezeway acts as hall, veranda, and climatic hinge. Sliding timber screens allow it to join either side, and high vents release warm air even when the house is closed. The family can live in a compact center during storms, then open the full plan in calmer months. Deep reveals and narrow openings on the exposed elevation temper glare; broad shaded doors toward the courts invite slower movement between inside and garden.

Material choices were tested against salt, humidity, and the realities of repair. The structural frame uses board-marked concrete with a mineral wash rather than a perfect sealed finish. Floors are honed local aggregate, cool underfoot and continuous across thresholds. Reclaimed ironwood forms screens, doors, and the dining table, with details designed so individual pieces can be removed. Brass is left unlacquered. It darkens near frequently touched edges, making daily use part of the interior rather than something to conceal.

Landscape is the house's second environmental system. Dense coastal planting filters wind and airborne salt, while roof water feeds the lowest court and a buried storage tank. No room depends on a singular view or mechanical comfort alone. Shade, cross-ventilation, thermal mass, and water work together, producing small changes in temperature and light across the day. Coastal Residence is less an object beside the sea than an inhabited edge, calibrated to the beautiful and difficult weather that gives the site its character.