Exploring an Extraordinary Sub-Tropical Modern Architecture Garden Home (House Tour) 

The front   garden room is definitely my favourite part of  the house the quality of the dappled light that   comes down through the void space above, the  way that it manages to handle the combination   of both private public agenda it challenges  the traditional entry sequence into a house   and it's just a beautiful  space to be in and around.

 I'm Justin Humphrey director  of Justin Humphrey Architects   and I was the project architect on Cove House. Sanctuary Cove is a gated community located on the  northern edge of the Gold Coast the community's   got a strong connection to water it's flanked on  one side by the Coomera river which runs out next   to us here on side all the way out towards South  Stradbroke Island and out towards Morton Bay.

 The site we're on today is on the lands of  both the Yugambeh and the Kombumerri people. The clients for this project had  travelled extensively and they had   developed an interest and appreciation  for sub-tropical modern architecture   they saw an opportunity to bring the  climate-responsive nature of this   sort of architecture back to their  site here in the Sanctuary Cove.

 The form of the house I guess is quite strong,  it's materiality with the concrete some of the   dark tones really needed to be offset and  that's where the perfect material to marry   it up with was the warmth in the timber and  also one of the elements of the brief for this   project originally was that the house needed  to be the equal parts building and garden.

 The main organising element in the house would be  the singular strong floating roof plane and the   articulation the way we've stopped both concrete  and timber battens short allowing that roof plane   to float over and it really does make sense of a  lot of the elements that are going on beneath it.

 The entry into the house was something that  we really wanted to spend some time on so the   concrete wall sort of wraps around from the  front of the house and actually guides you   through rather than having a hard edge and a  traditional front door to the street we wanted   to soften that with a finely detailed  timber batten screen at the front which   brings you into the first room of the house  which is actually an external garden room.

You've also got basically straight down the middle  at the start of what is the green landscape spine   of the house which separates the public entry from  the private access to the bedrooms externally. The concrete wall then continues to lead you from  the front door down past the internal courtyard   into the main living spaces these then flow  seamlessly to the outdoor spaces and then down   on towards what was affectionately known as 'The  Passion Pit' and down towards the pool beyond.

 My name is Tracey Morland and I'm  the owner of this beautiful property   we're right on the water which is great because  we love boating and we have a beautiful natural   reserve opposite us called Kumura Island and  it really feels like we have no neighbours   whatsoever it's just very peaceful and  quiet and nobody's staring in at us.

 The house responds very well to the natural  l ight we have the internal courtyards which   as the day moves the sun bounces off a lot  of the concrete walls and also the timber   I love that we utilise it for breezes so we  can have the wind coming through the home and   it's a very very cool home we also wanted to be  able to entertain which we do quite a lot so the   house actually just opens up completely and the  outdoors becomes the indoors and it becomes quite   a fabulous space to entertain. It just works  it's just such a beautiful home to live in.

 Passive design principles of the  house were really critical to get   to get the large roof span provides wide  eaves lots of protection from rain deep   shade in summer which helps obviously  with the curated breeze pathways working   through the house that allows us to reduce our  reliance on artificial cooling during summer.

The natural stone floor and the concrete  was employed the thermal mass of those   elements to really capture that lower  northern sun build up heat and you know   once again to further regulate  the temperatures all year round. The master bedroom was something that  predominantly with two people in the   house during the week that was going to be  one of the main spaces that they were in.

 Daily bathing rituals was something that  were part of the brief originally and so   we basically decided to lift up  the level of the master ensuite   to I guess create a bit of drama and  celebrate that daily sequence of events. I've thoroughly enjoyed actually seeing  the clients grow into the house and seeing   the house age and I really also hope this  house does effectively put down a marker   for an alternative way to approach the  same planning conditions in creating a   house that far better addresses  its natural climatic setting.