I think everywhere you look in the Plateau Project there's always a glimpse or a tease into the next space, there's this idea of a journey in everywhere you look in this home and that connects every space.
My name is Thomas Martin I'm the director at Rama Architects and I was the architect for the Plateau Project.
So the Plateau Project is located in Bilgola Plateau which is in the northern end of the northern beaches, below us we have the Angophora Reserve and even further below us we have the Pittwater Waterway over to the West we have the Ku-ring-gai National Park.
Our client wanted to achieve really just this sense of family unity, the existing house was not quite there it was a little bit small so we we needed to extend the existing house but the main driver from our client was to harness this family resemblance and not only that but with their background in photography, creating spaces to celebrate art to celebrate sculptures that was very important.
My name is Georges Antoni and myself and my wife Phoebe Ghorayeb own the Plateau Project.
I'm a fashion photographer, I've been a fashion photographer for the last 15, 20 years, the whole idea of building a home for our family was really about facilitating an amazing location and foundation for my children and my family to spend time together.
The inspiration for the house really started with this Australian modernism theme which we can see in the large living space and the expression of the rafters, but there was a moment in the existing house which was the existing staircase which was like a turret form, so that was something that we wanted to abstract and try to I guess celebrate throughout the rest of the house, creating the staircase up to the first floor and then also the ensuite as well as the day bed downstairs for the pool, we wanted to use these almost like anchors and celebrate that idea that concept of the turret.
One of our approaches in architecture is to do with the modernist approach of form follows function so what that means is we really need to make the house functional as a priority as opposed to it looking good, so getting the journey right from the entry of the home into the main living space, having that connectivity between the different bedrooms and the different rooms in the house is far more important to us than the actual aesthetics of the house.
Just off the living room we have the barbecue courtyard which is used for many family dinners, one of the beauties of the barbecue courtyard and the pool is that there is a connectivity through the hallway so as you come down the hallway there's a glimpse to the left of the barbecue courtyard and then a glimpse to the right of the pool area.
One of the key features of the house is the fireplace and as you walk into the living space you're greeted with this really tall space, so the fireplace really accentuates that height and that volume of this area, within the fireplace we have a Stoke tall MODE fireplace.
