Woorak House in Sydney offers peeks of nearby nature reserve

Airy pavilion-like structures make up this holiday home in Sydney, which CM Studio has designed to optimise views of its luscious green surroundings.

Woorak House is situated in Sydney's Palm Beach suburb. It perches on the tip of a peninsula that's bordered on one side by the Pacific ocean and on the other by a small bay called Pittiwater.

Despite its location, the site of the family holiday home had no direct views of the surrounding coast.

CM Studio decided to build the house as a sequence of pavilions that are orientated towards the lush foliage of an adjacent nature reserve.

"Moving throughout the home, you experience the expansion, contraction and pavilion connections in a way that delineates the different spaces," managing director of the studio, Megan Burns, told Dezeen.

"These spaces have different impacts and evoke different feelings, even if it's just subconsciously, you feel this as you move around the home," she continued.

"We also chose to use this typology because it allowed us to group the public and private spaces separately, giving the family bedroom pavilion privacy from the public entertaining and living pavilion."

Towards the rear of the house is a living and dining area that's topped by a pitched roof.

Sections of the peripheral walls have been cut away and replaced with concertina doors, which can be pushed back to open up the space to the verdant greenery outside.

Gauzy white curtains can also be drawn across, a feature that the studio hopes will evoke the same breezy, relaxed feel as coastal homes on the Mediterranean or the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy.

As the clients were keen for the house to have a timeless aesthetic, surfaces throughout – including the exposed beams on the ceiling – have been painted bright white.

This is complemented by pale limestone flooring.

Brushed oak wood has been used to craft the cabinetry in the kitchen, as well as the base of the chunky marble-topped breakfast island.

A traditional splashback has been swapped for a pane of glass that looks through to the planted terrain.

Decor is otherwise provided by an L-shaped grey sofa and a timber table. Its accompanying bench seat has been made to bend in line with the corner of the room.

A courtyard with decking placed around a pair of palm trees and a curved stairwell separate the living area from the front section of the home.

Here there is a trio of bedrooms, and an expansive bathroom that's been finished with tiled, herringbone-pattern floors.

The room has a huge freestanding tub, but a door leads through to an outdoor shower that stands in the shadow of a towering tree.

Large rough stones have been assembled into a privacy wall.

Completed in the same fashion as the ground-level living spaces, the upstairs master bedroom also has a pitched roof and walls inset with sliding glazed doors.

The bed nestles into a bespoke curved headboard that was created by the studio, and spindly pendant lamps dangle from the ceiling above.

A timber-lined arched doorway grants access to a small dressing area and ensuite bathroom, with textured white tiles and a circular vanity mirror.

This entire section of the house has been externally clad with slatted rosewood screens, which can be drawn across to stop passersby looking in.

Another glazed cut-out has also been created in the corner of the stairwell, offering an elevated perspective of the reserve.

CM Studio was founded in 2012 and is based in Sydney's Rushcutters Bay neighbourhood.

Its Woorak House project joins a number of covetable holiday homes in Australia – others include Ocean House by architect Rob Mills, which boasts minimalist interiors, and The Barn by Paul Uhlmann Architects, which takes cues from agricultural buildings.

Photography is by Prue Ruscoe.

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Project credits:

External expression and interiors: CM Studio
Builder: Bau Group Construction
Landscape concept: Secret Gardens
Banquette custom joinery and table: Mr and Mrs White
Joiner: Saltwater Joinery
Stylist: Alexandra Gordon

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Studio Moniker on how it’s getting harder for small studios to compete with big tech

We caught up with co-founders Roel and Luna in their Amsterdam base to discuss working with but also critiquing technology, and how their practice explores its social effects.

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“I own more books than I read, and want more books than I own”: Matt Asato-Adams on the magic of bookshops

In this week’s edition of Bookshelf, Matt shares five influential titles from his shelf including publications on science fiction, design theory and typography.

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Plastique Fantastique makes iSphere mask informed by 1950s sci-fi comics

Berlin-based art collective Plastique Fantastique has created an open-source, retro-futuristic face shield shaped like a fish bowl to protect wearers against coronavirus.

The helmet-like design, called the iSphere, comprises two transparent, hollow hemispheres that have been secured together and cut to create a hole for the user to fit their head through.

Plastique Fantastique founders Marco Canevacci and Yena Young were driven to design the shield as a response to new regulation. On 27 April 2020, it became mandatory for people on public transport in Berlin to keep their mouth and nose covered in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Canevacci and Young wanted to bring an element of humour to a serious object for non-medical users.

They found inspiration in science fiction comics of the 1950s, as well as visuals from "utopian movements" of the 1960s.

These include the work of various art and architecture collectives from the end of the 60's, such as avant-garde architectural group Archigram, Viennese group Haus-Rucker-Co and architecture, graphic arts, and environmental design practice Art Farm.

"This virus is very democratic: it spreads over the borders, has no preference for gender, social, cultural, or economic status," said the studio.

"[It] is changing our relation to each other and affecting our perception of reality," they added. "In this time of lockdown, we wonder about the mutation of our social life and the effects of the deprivation of physical touch."

The iShield project is an open-source design that anyone can download, produce, develop and improve.

For their version of the shield, Canevacci and Young taped two transparent, hollow PVC hemispheres together – bought from an art supply shop – and cut a hole into them that would fit around their head.

According to the duo, the whole process took around 30 minutes and the costs for the materials were about €24, which is approximately £21.

The designers also suggest customising the iShield with add-on "gadgets" such as a sunshade, a mirrored layer, an integrated microphone, a speaker or a snorkel.

New York designer Joe Doucet also designed a face shield to protect against coronavirus, which would be worn like a pair of sunglasses.

Creative studio Production Club created a personal protective suit for clubbing during a pandemic, which includes an air-tight top suit and helmet that covers the hands, arms, upper torso and head, and also has features for drink and vape consumption.

Video and photography is by Marco Barotti.

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Illustrator Anna Gibb draws Isolation Escapes architecture montage

British architect and illustrator Anna Gibb has combined buildings by architects including Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe to create an architectural montage of places people would like to be quarantined in during the coronavirus pandemic.

London-based Gibb made the pen drawing on watercolour paper over the past month while in lockdown by combining suggestions of architecturally significant public buildings into one architecture rich collage.

"I wanted to make a collaborative piece as an escape from the groundhog days we find ourselves in," Gibb told Dezeen. "We're all physically separate at the moment, but connected in ways that mean a project like this was possible, and indeed exciting."

Each of the buildings was selected by Gibb's friends, family and social media followers, with the first building – Torre Guinigi in Lucca – chosen by Gibb herself and the final building – Grimshaw's Eden project – chosen by her husband.

"The only 'rule' for suggesting a building for the drawing was that it is normally open to the public," explained Gibb.

"So there are museums, galleries, castles, even a lighthouse. There are lots of architectural gems in there but it was good fun to discover a few buildings which were completely unknown to me before this, such as the beautiful Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, the world’s largest sundial."

The montage includes 51 buildings across 14 countries spanning 438 BC to 2017, as well as the International Space Station. The buildings represent a broad spectrum of styles with modernist icons like Farnsworth House by Mies Van der Rohe and Ronchamp by Le Corbusier alongside the high-tech Lloyd's building and baroque Castle Howard.

"There are a real mix of styles, which I think really adds to the visual interest of the piece," said Gibb. "I love the juxtapositions it has created, such as the Parthenon in conversation with the Oslo opera house."

The drawing also includes several buildings built in the 21st century like the Oslo opera house by Snøhetta and 20 Fenchurch Street in London by Rafael Viñoly. Jean Nouvel's Louvre Gallery in Abu Dhabi is the newest building in the drawing.

At the other end, the oldest building in the picture is the Parthenon in Athens, with the Roman baths in Bath and the Pantheon being the other classic buildings in the composition.

The picture also includes two structure that have suffered significant fire damage in recent years – Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art.

Gibb's began the drawing five days after lockdown in the UK began and enjoyed the collaborative nature of the design process.

"Drawing for me is usually very much a solo pursuit so this was completely new to me. Normally, once I receive, or create, a brief, I spend a long time researching and constructing the drawing in my head," she said.

"It was refreshing to have this first part of the process removed thanks to all the brilliant suggestions from the participants, so I could just jump straight into drawing."

A print of the final drawing is for sale at online shop Urbanmakers, with all of the proceeds set to be donated to charity.

"All profits from the sale of the prints will be donated to Macmillan Cancer Support," aid Gibb. "It is a cause close to my own heart and they are suffering from a significant reduction in funding since the onset of this pandemic.

"Notwithstanding that fact that there's an inherent increase in demand for their unbelievable services in this uncertain time. I'd also like to mention the hosts of my online shop, Urbanmakers, who've waived all commission from print sales in order that we can donate more to Macmillan."

Across the world millions of people are currently self isolating in their homes to slow the spread of coronavirus. For those looking for architectural entertainment Dezeen has rounded up ten films with amazing architecture, while for this with children Foster + Partners has created a series of architecture activities.

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