The Urban Jungle Bungalow is located on an unusual site on the Gold Coast. The site is 100m from the beach but has no views and is accessed via the service area of a cluster of local restaurants. Unusually, the site is zoned for multiple residences and allows for construction up to the street boundary.

The client is an interior designer, with whom we collaborated on the design. The brief had two components, the first being the addition of a new two-bedroom apartment on the street frontage, located above the garage, to be used for visitors or rental. The primary frontage faces west into a busy public area, and so the proposed facade is largely solid, with a permeable screen in terracotta breeze block allowing for ventilation, privacy and filtered light.

The rear of the property is a surprising oasis of green, with mature trees, chickens and a lawn, all of which is invisible from the street. For the second part of our role, the client asked us to consult on the design of a new covered outdoor entertainment area as well as a new entry are to the existing two storey beach cottage.

For the rear component, we leaned into the material and formal language of the existing beach cottage. and integrated a large mature tree to create a space that was flexible enough to provide space for the client’s large family to use the space in a variety of ways as the seasons change and their children grow.

Location: Tugun, Gold Coast, Australia