Arakwal people of the Bunjalung nation
New South Wales
Blok Belongil is a new beach house produced in collaboration between Blok Modular and Vokes and Peters, exploring the adaptability and sustainability of volumetric modular building procurement.
Our client purchased a triangular shaped site, located between a public beach car park, a train line, and a busy neighbourhood feeder road, but blessed with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, the hinterland mountains, and Point Byron.
The house is conceived as a communal building (reception vestibule, lobby lounge, restaurant, private garden, guest suites etc) for our clients, their young adult children, and visitors to share time together. The house is small but spatially and experientially generous.
Modular procurement not only meets the local planning objectives (the house has to be removable in the event of rising sea levels) but building in a factory helps minimise the level of disruption (often toxic) to the local ecology of the building site and locale.
Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
Blok Belongil in Byron Bay is a house that challenges assumptions.
As a modular building it challenges typical building methods. Its form, responding to the triangular site, challenges assumptions of what a modular house can be. In plan, it challenges the way a house is conceived for immediate and future residents.
The house is located at the “gateway” to a new residential area with expansive views over Belongil Beach. Living spaces, a generous deck overlooking the ocean, and a bedroom are located at the first floor – similar to a self-contained apartment. At the ground floor, a suite of bedrooms off an external hall could be the kids’ bedrooms of a typical house or, alternatively, short-stay accommodation or other household arrangements not yet envisaged.
Factory built, the detail and resolution far exceed that of a typical house built to the same budget. Blok Belongil presents an exciting alternative for the future.
Bec and I have been coming here since we kids. We spent schoolies across the road and it was always our dream to build a house here.
I was concerned about the triangular site and was surprised that this project took what I thought would be a negative and turned it into a real positive.
The house performs like a hotel, allowing us to leave at a moment’s notice without having to close it all up. The mesh walls allow the whole house to breathe and you can sleep with rooms open to the sound of the ocean.
Anderson Energy, ESD Consultant
Andrew Coates – Prandium, Landscape Consultant
Incode Engineers, Structural Engineer
Westera Partners, Civil Consultant