An Architect’s Own Home Designed as an Experiential Tree House by the Ocean (House Tour)

My name's Madeleine Blanchfield, and I'm the 

Director of Madeleine Blanchfield Architects. The house we're in at the moment is in 

Bronte. That's where I live with my family and it's somewhere that's really special 

because it's so close to the city but it's two minutes from the beach. My 

husband and my son are fanatical surfers and I think the lifestyle is really appealing 

because it's so connected to nature. Bronte is very special to me because it feels 

more like a little beachside forest enclave. Treehouse is on Bronte Road and it's facing north 

into Bronte Gully so, because of the elevation of the site, we're actually looking into the tops 

of the trees in the Gully which is quite unusual. We approach design as quite a scientific 

undertaking. We're very interested in light and the quality of space and that 

comes first. It's the sun and shading and sustainable principles that are built 

into buildings are very important to us, so we look at all of that before we get 

carried away with forms or sculptural elements. The really tricky thing about the site is 

it's so steep, so the garden at the back is two floors above or three floors above the 

street. So, we knew that we wanted to live on the top floor because when you're in here 

you feel like you're in the treetops and that's one of the most beautiful things about the 

house to me is what you're looking out at, so it's very much about the connection to nature 

and not feeling like you're in the suburbs. I'm a big believer that a house should open up as you enter it and continue to give and 

ideally a house will have little moments of awe and wonder as you move through, so it's not 

just all in your face in a first moment. So the house is entered from the 

lower level where the garage is and there's a concrete staircase taking you 

up to the front door. On the way, we've got very carefully thought through gardens and a 

pond. Water kind of bouncing off the ceiling, and then when you enter the front door 

you met with the spiral staircase. When they come up it's a real, I guess 

journey is a nice way of putting it The house is quite crisp and refined and we 

wanted the garden to be just really the opposite, be very natural and untrimmed. Succulents are 

fantastic and we wanted things that would flow over the concrete and complement the grey 

tones. The little boys room has a pond out the front and faces north so there's sun bouncing 

around on the water the whole time and he's a real water boy, and the little girl has a kind of 

courtyard forest with a crazy tree in it and that just really suits her personality. So to 

me engaging with the space outside of their room was much more meaningful than kind of painting it 

a colour. The bedrooms all actually open off the stair void but there's no view into the beds, it's 

carefully thought through so that you just see curved walls and the experience on the way means 

that the bedroom is more private and cocooned. The bathroom is something you walk through to get to the bedroom and it sits 

in a little shrouded screen. I think not considering bathrooms as a space that 

you go in to wash, but as something that actually could contribute to the rest of the house and 

a sense of layering is something that i find really interesting. One of my favourite things in 

the house really is just the light and the way it changes throughout the day, and i think there's 

just always a sense of joy when you walk up the stairs and whether it's sunrise or sunset you 

really feel connected to nature and its energy. When it came to interiors, the materials in the 

house are very paired back and there aren't many so it's mostly concrete and pale timber. We 

really wanted to maintain a sense of lightness and calm throughout the house so minimising the 

number of materials is a nice way to do that, and I also think when you have few materials 

you focus more on how they're detailed so you tend to look again and again and see a little 

bit more each time. We've got terracotta in the bathroom floor and I actually love 

that bathroom it's such a nice space. When you stand on the floor it's kind of like 

standing on sand as opposed to being on tiles. The timber floor and the terracotta really 

blend beautifully and it just avoids having that jarring sense of walking from one room 

into another which I think is really nice. Artificial lighting is something that I'm 

really passionate about because a lot of your experience of a house is at night and 

with light you can play with space. You can push light onto surfaces and completely change 

the way a room feels depending on whether the light's falling on the outer edges or on the 

ceiling or the floor, combining the different surfaces at different times and it's really been 

fun to play with that in our own house. I think it reinforces just how important it is and how much 

difference it makes to the way a space feels. I'd say that the house is very experiential and it's all about light and change and 

mood, more so than architectural features. It may not be apparent to someone the first 

time they come, but the more you look, the more there is to see and it's just 

that sense of thoughtfulness that i think permeates a house, even if you're not aware 

of exactly why you're feeling that way.