Nick Kent Design designs Bondi House as steel framed kit of parts

Nick kent design: a concise orientation before we get practical.

Nick kent design: Quick notes

Translucent polycarbonate screens and metal louvres create a play of light and shadow throughout this minimalist house in Sydney, Australia, designed by local studio Nick Kent Design.

Named Bondi House after its location close to Bondi Beach, the two-storey, two-bedroom dwelling replaces a derelict building on a long and narrow plot.

Nick Kent Design designed Bondi House as a “kit of parts”

The home has a lightweight, steel-framed structure, created from what Nick Kent Design called a “kit of parts”, which is painted white and clad in a mixture of translucent and reflective surfaces.

This frame means both the internal and external walls are non-load-bearing, allowing for the home to be easily reconfigured in future or used as a prototype and adapted for different sites.

It has a lightweight steel frame that can be reconfigured

“We deliberately constrained ourselves with a limited ‘kit of parts’ that were used repetitively throughout the building to create as rich an experience as possible,” studio founder Nick Kent told Dezeen.

“Materials suited to the play of light and shadows – a combination of transparent, translucent and reflective surfaces – mediate and engage with the site’s natural environment, while achieving privacy from adjacent neighbours.”

The living room is illuminated by a wall of polycarbonate

Using the depth of the plot, the home was set back at both the front and back, buffering it from the busy street and maximising space for a rear garden, which has been planted with indigenous species.

Behind a frontage of stainless steel garage doors, a corridor leads past a bathroom into the central living room, which is illuminated by a wall of translucent polycarbonate and overlooked by the home’s white-steel staircase.

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In the adjacent kitchen and dining area, the same polycarbonate panels have been used behind the metal kitchen counters, opposite a corner of full-height sliding glass doors that lead out into the rear garden.

External roller blinds provide additional shading to the ground floor when needed, while above, the first-floor bedrooms have been wrapped in adjustable aluminium louvres.

There is a sculptural white-steel staircase

A skylit hallway on the first floor leads to the front of Bondi House, where a study space extends into a projecting balcony overlooking the street. It is finished with a metal grille floor and ceiling and wrapped in lightweight mesh screens.

While the home’s palette is predominantly defined by metal, Nick Kent Design added visual warmth with a mix of granite details and oak panelling and storage, such as in the living and bedroom areas.

Metal counters and oak joinery feature in the kitchen

“There is an aesthetic continuity from the external expression through to the interiors, down to the fittings and furniture – primarily with concrete, stainless steel, anodised aluminium, glass, polycarbonate,” said Kent.

“Contrasting natural and coloured elements were introduced to the spaces to bring softer textures and warmth,” he added.

Other residential projects in Australia recently featured on Dezeen include the extension to a worker’s cottage in Flemington by Cera Stribley and a temple-style home in Melbourne by J Kidman Architecture.

The photography is by Tom Ross.