Tamarama's Architectural landscape

Sunday morning, and the alarm set for 5.15am. My partner a keen surfer, aka a self confessed surf Junkie, was determined to be one of the early rise surfers enjoying the forecast summer swell at Tamarama. The energy he comes home with after being out and active so early in the morning, had me wanting to be a part of it. So at 5.30am we left the house with  a coffee, Pilates mat and surfboard, and headed off to Tama. In between attempting to do Pilates on the weathered sandstone headland, I decided to indulge a little in the home design and landscape of the area. 

Now, i know this post is quite off the topic of my more recent posts on Christmas, however i have always been fascinated with the architectural diversity of the Tamarama Gully, one of Sydney's Eastern Suburbs most beautiful beaches. 

Tamarama, of course, wasn't always so densely built up, pre 1887, Tamarama was a lush gully filled with cascading waterfalls, mass vegetation and a creek running through it to the beach. Then in the early 20th century building permission was granted for an amusement park. 'Wonderland City' was built into the untouched naturally beautiful Tamarama, based on the one in Coney Island, southern Brooklyn NYC. It was only a matter of years however before the public became slightly disinterested, and the park was dismantled, some say leaving quite destructive scars and weeds in the previously pristine landscape. I cant even imagine what it would've been like to have an amusement park at Tama today, but here is a photo of what 'Wonderland city' was like in its prime, and what it is now.

The homes around this area are absolutely magnificent. A lot of contemporary coastal architecture is now present, however a lot of the designs delve into varying styles of architecture and from a range of design periods. The one thing the newer builds have in common, thank goodness!! is the facades are designed to maximise the view points from as many internal rooms as possible, through the use of over sized picture windows and entire glass walls. They have also had to sensitively approach and incorporate solar shutters into the design, and other means to control and best make use of the extreme Australian sun and light flooding in. 

The visual appeal of the Tama landscape is the use of colour and variation in design. This is certainly not an area where you see the predictable use of red brick and tiled hip roof, which is fantastic and shows that home owners are wanting to make their design stance and create homes that represent them and enhance their environment.

I particularly love the Spanish mission inspired homes, with their rich terracotta patina render, covered entry porch and the large arched windows. 

Here are a few of my fav. designs around the Tamarama Gully. 

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. The beach will be the best place to be today, 30 degrees today and a water temp is the ideal temp to refresh and cool down in.

  

x Erica