BUSH BEAUTY

With sweeping national park views, this house was designed to make the landscape the hero – all while staying safe from fire threat.

- Georgia Madden

POOL AREA “We wanted to create the feeling that when you’re relaxing in the pool, you’re right in the middle of the Australian landscape,” says architect Tony Chenchow of this home in Sydney’s Palm Beach. The same bricks, Bowral Bricks ‘Chillingham White’ from Brickworks, are used around the pool and inside the house.

SAFE AND SOUND

The Australian Building Standards state that bricks are one of the few approved materials suitable for use in the construction of external walls in bushfire-prone areas*. The key is in the way they’re made. When clay bricks are manufactured, they are heated to between 1000ËšC and 1200ËšC – that’s hotter than a bushfire – for long periods, so you know they are robust enough to withstand anything Australia throws at them. “Clay bricks are nonflammable and noncombustible, making them one of the best and safest building materials for bushfire-prone areas,” says Brett Ward, general manager of international marketing at Brickworks Building Products.

Generally, people who build in a spot like Sydney’s Northern Beaches are after the water views. Not the owner of this house. Instead, it was the wild, untamed beauty of McKay Reserve, further inland, that he fell in love with.