There is a road in Coogee where Port Jackson fig trees have pushed their roots clean under the footpath, and for years, one of the last of the original brick and tile bungalows sat quietly beneath them. It’s since been designed for Coogee House III, a new home for a family of six by Tribe Studio Architects and interior designer Genevieve Hromas—and when the finished house has a signature move, how hard is it to feel like it was always meant to be there.
The brief was deceptively simple: a solid beachside family home, able to accommodate six people and a dog, and allow memories to accumulate rather than be erased. Hromas traces the entire project back to a single sensor symbol—“the smell of sun-dried bricks after a summer rain”-which was the poetic beginning of a home built to grow old, not to stay pristine.
Placed next to an existing fig tree in a very solid suburban block, this house was designed to have the privilege of landscape and generosity over the display facing the street: a low front door, a thrown garden, and an inverted spatial logic that pushes wide glazing upwards, so that the bedrooms get green views.
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Few Australian studios have built a business as quietly proven as Arent&Pyke. At Bradleys Head House, that same spirit of generosity fills every room—the Federation Arts and Crafts residence for a new generation.
Architecturally, the house reads like two bungalow-shaped pavilions that extend up the site, separating children from adults, public and private, with a central staircase that doubles as a hot chimney between them.“Private world,”said architect Hannah Tribe,“where the modest street address contrasts with the variety of built forms and the incredible volume inside.”Red brick, gabled roof lines and“I don’t feel very comfortable”the brick architecture of the neighboring house blocks all fit into the palette—though the one real highlight of the house is the run of 23 supporting brick arches, which open toward the northern sun.
There’s a personal, almost matrilineal sense behind the details, too—One Tribe directly traces the history and work of the client.“References are drawn from our clients’ childhood memories and women’s artistic visions,”he says.“The details of the bricks are like the texture of a tapestry. Acting like icing, pulling the wood reminds us of our client’s leather skills. The details are an unexpected combination of refinement and rawness—it’s an experiment to direct the client’s memory and feeling and the longing and love of the repair of the creative innovation.”It’s an apt way to describe a project created, from architect to interior designer, by two women who admired each other’s work—what Hromas calls it.“a clear presence of women,”it is expressed in strength rather than decoration.
Inside, that restraint allows warmth. Hromas layered red cement floors—interrupted by ground glass mosaic thresholds that quietly track the family’s daily wear—oppose an exposed LVL structure, perforated steel staircases, and a study clad in polished stainless steel designed to blend into the greenery rather than announce itself. In the kitchen, a silky oak island sits against Roman Blue quartzite and blue porcelain tiles laid with thin grout.“Items are chosen for depth, meaning and maturity with age,”Hromas explains—the direct rejection of the short cycle eliminates much of the habit of still relying on it.
There is something real under the good looks, too: A radiant heat pump, solar PV and battery storage, abundant rainwater harvesting, a natural pool and neutral bricks, and a central staircase that pulls double duty as a hot labyrinth to cool the house in the summer without air conditioning—although the bedrooms, the Tribe admits, ended up getting it anyway.
The project has already received official recognition, including a win in the Residential Design category at the 2026 Australian Interior Design Awards and a commendation at the AIA NSW Architecture Awards. But the most important victory, by the sounds of it, belongs to the family that lives in it.“Hannah designed our house to encourage intimacy and creativity as well as privacy and functionality,”said the client.“Genevieve’s skill with interiors—it’s rare; intricate designs make shadows into cool patterns, and rooms open to air and the smells and sounds of nature. Just beautiful.”
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There are houses that solve problems, and then there are houses that reframe the question. EA House by Bokey Grant Architects, perched atop an “unbuildable” cliff in Mittagong, falls squarely into the second camp.
[Principal Architect: Hannah Tribe. Project Architect: Maria Gutierrez Vargas. Interior Designer: Genevieve Hromas. Builder: P & S Design Construct Pty Ltd – Peter Fuchs. Bricklayers: MCM Masonry Pty Ltd. Structural and Hydraulic Engineer: Partridge. Landscape Consultant: Studio UC. Custom Lighting Design: OKO OLO. Styling by OKO OLO with Twentieth Century Ken Neale. Photography: David Chatfield.]