St Andrews Beach by Aych Architects
St Andrews Beach by Aych Architects
A protected coastal courtyard home in St Andrews Beach, Victoria
How can a courtyard make exposure feel protective rather than vulnerable? At St Andrews Beach, Aych Architects answers through a home shaped around a central courtyard and the pressures of a rugged coastal site.
Set among the dunes of St Andrews Beach, this home by Aych responds to a rugged coastal site through shelter and a deep connection to landscape. Positioned within a tightly defined building envelope, the project turns a series of constraints into a clear architectural proposition, using a square plan organised around a central courtyard to bring light, protection and openness into daily life. The courtyard distributes northern sun deep into the home, while maintaining a strong sense of enclosure from wind and exposure. Concrete block walls anchor the house into the site, allowing structure and material to work as one. Large glazed openings soften that solidity, framing dunes and sky while preserving a calm, grounded atmosphere. The result is a house that feels both protective and open to its landscape.
‘Being able to have a house and have it in a place where it does have some level of protection, both from the natural dunes around it, but also be able to find a way that you can still access the outside and still be able to enjoy the broader site, but yet still have the protection.’
— High Feggans, Director, Aych Architects
Architecture by Aych Architects, built by Penbuild.
Produced by Simple Dwelling. Filmed, edited, photographed and words by Anthony Richardson.
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