The Swimming Pool Salesman

‘You wanna know what I think of the Hydra-Klean 2000? It’s a piece of shit, that’s what I think. You can Hydra-Klean my butt and it’ll still stink. But what would I know? I’ve only built thirty-three hundred swimming pools in the Tri-State area over thirty-five years.

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The Pool

The Pool, published by Australian Institute of Architects for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.

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Rural Idyll

House design can be simple really – or at least it can stem from fundamental ideas. In the case of this house in the upper Hunter Valley, architect Richard Cole explains that his design approach was to create a house for the site as the owners had always used it.

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Of Stone and Wood

Rob Brown is making a habit of designing well-crafted houses on steeply sloping beach sites. He has previously created award-winning houses around Pittwater to the north of Sydney and a number of south coast residences. For his latest venture he has turned his attention to Stanwell Park.

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Garden Lookout

In this quiet harbourside suburb of Sydney’s lower north shore, the predominant house types are Californian bungalow and mock Tudor. Some are in original condition; many have been “rebranded” to accommodate media rooms, gourmet kitchens and whatever else can be squeezed into the available space.

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Concrete Jungle

It’s a bleak and wintry morning when I meet with architect Domenic Alvaro of AKA Studio under a heater at a Darlinghurst cafe. We are transported, via his photographs, to the tropical heat of Wonga Beach in Far North Queensland and to the house he has designed there.

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