S2 · E11April 14 · 39 min
Tim and Kevin take a road trip down to Anglesea, on Victoria’s Surf Coast, to visit architect John Wardle at Burnt Earth Beach House, his award-winning holiday home.
Described by his peers as “the architect’s architect”, John is the recipient of the Gold Medal, Australian architecture’s highest honour.
He’s also a collector of things, people and ideas, and this is on full display as he not only opens up his house but his curious mind in this revealing conversation about why craft still matters, why his house is full of op shop treasures, and why designing good houses can be so difficult.
You really should be listening by now :)
John Wardle is an internationally renowned architect and the founder of Wardle, which has studios in Sydney and Melbourne. The work of Wardle is tailored to place and highly experiential in nature. Diverse in scale and typology, its portfolio spans domestic dwellings, university and healthcare buildings, museums and large commercial offices.
The practice has won national and international awards for education, residential and civic design. John speaks regularly at national and international conferences. He maintains strong ties to the Australian arts community and academia. He is an adjunct professor at the University of South Australia, and an honorary professorial fellow in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne.
Burnt Earth Beach House combines material invention, experimentation and collaboration with accomplished placemaking. This is a multi-generational home that utilises terracotta in two primary forms – through the exterior brickwork, and internally to line walls, floors and joinery elements.
The broadly cruciform plan describes view lines and daylight ingress precisely. Facing north, the views are to the Southern Ocean and the surrounding landscape. The governing lines of the plan mark the centre point of the ‘X’ as the island kitchen bench. It is both literally and figuratively the heart of this home. From here, all social activity spills out into living and dining areas on the ground floor.
The colour and tonality of the cliff edges in Anglesea are expressed in the use of an invented brick. The extensive process involved extrusion and hand-tearing the brick surface prior to cutting, which exposes a raw, rough-hewn texture.
A series of glazing experiments applied to raw clay before single firing are revealed in different sections of the building. Unglazed bricks blend with green and brown glazed bricks, which broadly align with the extensive planting of coastal banksias surrounding the property.
Spotted gum timber is used carefully in varying formats – recycled (flooring), veneer (joinery) and sparingly as solid (windows and revealed structure in areas). The robust natural materials of the limited palette are durable and will weather to a natural tonality.
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Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation) in Australia, Royal Institute of British Architects (@RIBA) in the UK and New Zealand Institute of Architects (@nziarchitects) in New Zealand.
Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: John Wardle (@wardle.studio)
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)
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