The Beach House: Cultivating Nostalgia

January 1st, 2020.

Slow days that span one end of the Christmas and Easter Holidays to the other, burnt feet on bitumen, plastic dinner plates balanced on knees atop fold out picnic chairs calling for a particularly coordinated effort to eat and swot simultaneously…this is the film reel that plays in many a mind of the classic beach house experience.   

Throughout the entirety of our short history, Australian’s have consistently nurtured a strong relationship with the concept of the ‘beach house’. The notion of a home-away-from-home that temporarily offers all the creature comforts that help induce leisure and relaxation, as opposed to the daily grind, has long been idealised as the epitome of the family summer holiday.

Whether your imagination holds firm a picturesque fibro shack a la 1950’s style, a humble beach box awash with colour, or an all out multi-generational contemporary sprawl with a pool off the living room and the ocean reaching out into the distance beyond, the Aussie beach house has been through a fascinating evolution over the years to emerge as a stunning expression of every era, design persuasion, economic position and leisure nuance imaginable. They do however, tend to have one major element in common, they all uphold a relaxing, easygoing and unfussy lifestyle as the cornerstone of liveability and functionality. 

Portsea Beach House by Studio Esteta. Photograph by Sean Fennessy

Satellite Island, Tasmania. Photography by Sweet Natured Photography.

The beach house is our opportunity to relinquish trend in favour of convenience. To let day to day activities dictate layout and styling. To gratefully throw off the shackles of the permanent to harness that transient effortlessness of long summer days where we truly know we can get by with life’s simple necessities. The considerations that come into play for a beach house are centred around the idea of blurring the aspects of indoor and outdoor. Of less time spent weighed down by domestic chore. Of sacrificing technology for more back to basics ideals. Indoor space is sacrificed for landscape space and the three bedroom, three bathroom house becomes stripped back to bunk beds, outdoor showers and casual living zones. 

Details at Bluff House by Rob Kennon Architects. Photography by Derek Swalwell.

In the Australian psyche, having a ‘weekender’ to escape to is the quintessential piece of the balanced lifestyle jigsaw. It has come to occupy the wellbeing space in that it provides the opportunity to reset. The beach house, as one such weekender, is the ultimate compliment to the Australian way of life. We work hard, we play hard and when we chill we head en masse to the coast.     

Words by Tiffany Jade.

Feature image courtesy of @jaypee1