The Journey of Building and Designing a Concrete Home (House Tour)

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Mona Lane, designed by Harley Graham Architects, with interiors by Louise Walsh, is a concrete home that seemingly disappears among the stunning coastal surroundings of the New South Wales Northern Rivers region.

When the owners of Mona Lane moved to the costal landscape of Brunswick Heads from the countryside they sought out Harley Graham and his team to custom design a forever home that facilitated a feeling of elevated living outside.

Comprising of three large residential apartments designed to combine into one central home, Mona Lane is an impressively large concrete home designed for the occupants to fully embrace the picturesque coastal landscape of the New South Wales Northern Rivers Region.

The architectural intentions by Harley Graham and his team focused on making this large monolithic concrete structure disappear. In doing so the design team utilised dark timber cladding that envelopes the floor plates in vegetation, thus concealing the bulk of the home and providing amenity to the interior spaces which also feature polished concrete throughout.

The clients requested a muted monochromatic palette for the interior that was in keeping with the concrete texture that dominates the exterior. In keeping with the overall design brief to provide elevated living outside, interior designer Louise Walsh and her team custom designed an interior that sits calmly against the strong architecture and combines nicely with the stunning views to the landscape beyond.

With such vast amounts of concrete required for the overall designing and building on Mona Lane, decorative concrete company Geostone Australia worked extensively with the design team to provide the robust textural materiality found only in the correct application of concrete finishes. Comprising of locally sourced materials from the Northern Rivers region, Geostone’s polished concrete floors feature extensively throughout the internal spaces of the house, giving the architect and interior designer the perfect canvas to work upon, and the occupants a practical, yet stylish, finish in their home.

Ultimately this Mona Lane home stands as testament to the benefits of concrete and polished concrete flooring. By combining innovative architecture, with custom interior design and extensive use of concrete, the team behind Mona Lane have created a contemporary home, elevated by its stunning coastal surroundings.