Departure Lounge–Coastal Garden That Embraces Holiday Mode
A series of cascading terraces and platforms inject a sense of openness into Banksia House.
The floorplan is fragmented, blurring the lines between inside and outside to deliver an unconventional balance between the landscape and built form.
Sculptural structures emerge as a continuation of the perimeter wall, offering privacy and a platform by which to showcase the landscape.
The red flowering gum is among the 95 per cent of native planting selections, designed to infuse pops of colour within the layered garden.
The red flowering gum is amongst the 95% of native planting selections, designed to infuse pops of colour within the layered garden.
With water views in place, attention turns to a unique garden design that gathers family and friends into holiday mode, creating the ultimate staycation.
With travel resuming in a post-Covid world, families are seizing every opportunity to escape the domesticity of daily life. But what if you didn’t need to leave the country (or even your home) to embark on the ultimate getaway? For Sunshine Coast locals Kirsti and Wayne, it was time to establish a coastal retreat for family and friends to come together and unwind in a local setting. Inspired by the nostalgia of previous travel to tropical destinations like Fiji, Bali and Vanuatu, Kirsti and Wayne decided to inject a sense of unconventional openness into their new home by striking a unique balance between the landscape and the built form.
Banksia House Garden was conceived as a series of fragmented landscape platforms, terraces and courtyards that are inhabited as intimate ‘outdoor rooms’. As a landscape architect and founder of 7b Landscapes and Interiors, Kirsti understood the power of restraint and immersion. “It was important for the landscape to evolve in synthesis with the house. When you’re immersed in the landscape, you’re immediately removed from everyday domesticity,” says Kirsti. “It brings you into holiday mode.” By inverting the traditional residential model, the garden becomes the centrepiece of the dwelling, infiltrating every room and forming the core communal spaces. Conventional circulation zones are also given back to the landscape, with only bedrooms and bathrooms devised as traditionally private rooms, though all have garden access and views. “It’s a departure from everything else on the street,” muses Kirsti. “You find small peeks of the ocean, but this house doesn’t look for ocean views. Instead, it embraces the garden.” The result is a demonstration of architecture and landscape working as one.
With a condensed design and construction program, timing was critical. So Kirsti enlisted the help of local architect Dragi Majstorovic. Together, they devised three pods that would form the architectural response: sleeping, kitchen and dining, and a self-contained garage and master suite. “The fractured nature of the plan was critical to achieving a 50/50 balance of landscape and architecture,” Dragi explains. By separating and fragmenting the architectural pods, the garden was permitted to permeate transitional spaces, blurring the lines between interior and exterior. Notably, the external courtyard finish is continued inside the living pod, presenting the appearance of a unified garden and living room. Moreover, the sleeping spaces are carefully pared back to encourage gathering in communal spaces. “We wanted to draw everybody out of their bedrooms and into a space where we can all congregate as a family,” Kirsti says. Utilising a durable palette of concrete, blockwork, stone and subdued timbers, the almost brutalist architecture appears to be engulfed by the contrasting softness of the landscape.
Like the architecture, the gardens similarly showcase durable and hardy selections with over 95 per cent native plant species. Embracing muted tones, Kirsti specified coastal banksia, lilly pilly and coastal rosemary, with a scattering of kangaroo paw and red flowering gum to offer an enchanting pop of colour. The long block adjoins no less than six neighbouring properties, leading to privacy and overlooking concerns but this challenge was resolved through ingenious use of the landscape. Dragi devised a garden wall to surround the eastern, southern and western façades, delivering privacy and a backdrop by which to further elevate the landscape. Now overgrown with creeping figs, the wall is reminiscent of an ancient ruin. “It creates an atmosphere of mystery and secrecy from the street. When you arrive, there’s a sense of exploration and discovery,” Dragi explains. The wall is set back from the property boundary, permitting the landscape to inform the arrival sequence. Reminiscent of a dystopian structure overtaken by an ancient landscape, Banksia House Garden appears grounded in its setting. Stepping through the garden threshold is transformative, evoking a sense of serendipitous sanctuary essential for the commencement of any holiday.
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