Bellows House

Flinders VIC
/
2020

Along an unsealed road, a single row of mature poplar trees cast shadows onto the white concrete blocks in the morning light. The shadows animate the long facade, highlighting the detailed articulations. The masonry and concrete detailing, together with the curious frustum roof shape and layering of spaces, captures the attention of passersby to stop and look. Once inside the house, the 2 largest of the frustum roofs reveal their internal structure: reverse step concrete pyramids.

At the onset of the project the decision was made to design a beach house that was permanent. Anchoring the house in the sand instead of using typical light weight beach vernacular created more of a bunker than a shack. While this house doesn’t have spectacular cliff top views to the ocean, its flat, inland location prompted a response of a place marker, which the locals now affectionately refer to as the “Pyramids of Flinders”.