Clifftop House

The brief

Clifftop house design doesn't get more exposed than this. The rear of the house extends past the cliff edge, thirty metres above the Pacific, and holds its line through Central Queensland's full range of coastal weather. On a calm day the outlook is open ocean. On a wild one, sea spray reaches the balcony.

Structure, materials and siting all had to answer the same question: how to treat a cliff edge as an opportunity rather than a constraint. The result is coastal living at its most exposed, and its most rewarding.

Type

Coastal home

Site

Clifftop, thirty metres above the ocean

Year

2013

Clifftop house design that embraces the edge

Clifftop house design is a balance between drama and durability. The views are the reason to build, but wind, salt and storms test every decision about structure and materials.

On this site, siting and engineering were resolved together from the start, so the house could extend over the edge with confidence. It is the kind of challenging site the studio enjoys most, where the right design turns a constraint into the reason the home exists.

A home like this also depends on everyone working from the same clear information. The design and documentation had to give the engineer and builder everything they needed to build on the edge with certainty. Since 2006 Design Artisan has taken on steep, coastal and remote sites that ask more of the design, and this is one of the most memorable.

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