This renovation of a 1970’s multi-residential building in Cottesloe allows it to rest carefully in its dunal hilltop location.
Architecture and Hard Landscape: Simon Pendal Architect, commenced as Pendal and Neille
Soft Landscape Consultant: Carrier and Postmus
Builder: Kelly Building
Structural: Atelier JV
Electrical: BEST Consultants
Cost Consultant: RBB
Photographer: Robert Frith
2017 Cottesloe Lobby and Landscape, 19 Broome Street Cottesloe
2018 National Award for Small project Architecture Australian Institute of Architects
2018 The Iwan Iwanoff Award for Small Project Architecture, Australian Institute of Architects.
Outline Project Brief: This project involved the substantial renovation of the public entrance areas of a 1970’s modernist residential tower in suburban Cottesloe, re-phrasing its ramped entrance, an open-air lobby and peripheral landscape. The lobby was to be extended, enclosed and made secure. Existing canopies were replaced. New hard and soft landscape was to be provided. One third of the project budget was directed towards the replacement of common electrical infrastructure and the installation of a new 10kW photovoltaic system.
Commenced with Stephen Neille, the project involved the renovation of the entrance to a 1970’s residential tower on the ragged limestone coast. The lobby was to be extended and enclosed with new canopies and improved hard and soft landscape.
We started by accepting the physical alignment of an original ramp. Its degraded English Bond retaining walls felt rustic with a sense of mass. We sought to amplify the subterranean position of the lobby whilst being mindful of building atop an ancient sand dune in aolean limestone country. Materials of pale complexion were chosen to react with Perth’s white light – amplifying its capacity to ‘over-expose’ a scene.
The former ramp was removed. The original white retaining walls restored. Within these a new ivory-brick ramp with low sides was inserted to form a singular, weighty vessel, like that of an empty swimming pool, which converges at a change in direction.
A concrete roof is shaped for the entry of light at its sides and for the registration of stark shadow upon the ground. A grove of reflective columns, each a cluster of smaller polished tubes disrupts the space between roof and floor like navigating a thicket. Inside, the lobby ceiling is low, vaulted and heavy, a bench of Oregon Pine provides a place to sit under top light. The lobby ceiling’s shapeliness covers-up ungainly structural elements and extends deep into the interior before being abruptly cut by a shift in colour and a further compression of scale. At this lowest point (concealing an existing beam and sewer pipe) a teal-green stage-set for one’s arrival or departure reminds us of being enveloped by water, of swimming. This is a peripatetic architecture – the collecting of small moments, rewarding glances left and right, and of immersion and shifts in scale under movement.
