Australia's Most Enchanting Beach Houses

Dunlop demonstrates the deck’s secondary use: as a launching pad into the concrete plunge pool on the first floor.

With its site on a steep incline, a modern beach house on Louttit Bay was built in an upside-down manner to maximize views of the surrounding forest and ocean.

Walls of windows in the kitchen and living area frame uninterrupted views of a forest and the ocean.

An additional six weeks of construction were required on site to accommodate the large amount of decking and the two-car garage. Archiblox's David Martin said the toughest challenge of construction was the “double void area in the living room."

Nolan and her buisness partner, Patrick Kennedy, strove for a practical structure that reads as a vacation house. They opted for prototypical materials, like cinder blocks for a privacy screen, to hit that note. “It has an association with old beach houses and public buildings at the shore,” Nolan says. After trying different self-supporting configurations, they chose a zigzag pattern. The wall shields the courtyard from wind and doubles as a step for gutter maintenance. During parties, the family likes to place candles into the recesses. “That wall’s got a little bit of poetry, but it’s also doing a few jobs as well.