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THE AUSTRALIAN
BEN POWER THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 06, 2014 12:00AM
Robyn Egan at her home in North Balwyn, Melbourne. Source: News Corp Australia
This $5.7m house in Hunters Hill, Sydney, also opens up to a terrace and pool. Source: Supplied
The outdoor area at Amileka, Byron Bay, has the usual features plus a fire pit. Source: Supplied
HOME-OWNERS and buyers are increasingly refusing to be boxed in. Agents report strong demand for homes
that integrate indoor and outdoor living spaces, particularly from families and entertainers.
“It is definitely on buyers’ checklists these days,” says Damon Warat, an agent at Ray White Ascot in Brisbane. Warat
says properties with integrated living spaces are attracting more interest, which is flowing through to higher prices.
Australian homes were traditionally divided into formal and informal living spaces, and inside and outside spaces. That’s
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changing. You could call it the death of the good room. More homeowners are creating a space where living areas flow
seamlessly into outdoor areas such as decks and gardens.
Parents want to sit in their living room or work in the kitchen but also monitor their kids playing outside. More buyers
want the bedrooms upstairs, and the living and outdoor areas on the bottom floor, Warat says.
“There is a lot more demand for functional layouts and usable areas, rather than architectural designs that look pretty but
aren’t so functional,” he says. “It enables buyers to properly use the living spaces more often.”
Warat is marketing in indoor-outdoor house, 31 Mayfield Street, Ascot, in one of Brisbane’s most elite suburbs. It goes to
auction today.
The house, which has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, is typical of an in-demand family home because it has a living
space downstairs; the kitchen flows to an outdoor entertaining area opening up to a pool. “It has good integration of
indoor and outdoor,” he says.
In Sydney, Savills is marketing a five-bedroom waterfront house, 17 Ady Street, Hunters Hill. The property, which has a
target selling price of $5.7 million, opens up to a terrace and pool deck. The doors from the lounge open to a huge
entertainment terrace that doubles as an additional eating area.
Entertainers are finding that parties and functions work better in integrated spaces.
“The Australian family is looking at integrating indoor and outdoor areas,” says architect Santoso Budiman of
Melbourne’s SWG Studio. “When they entertain friends and family in a big group they can open bifold doors or sliding
doors so people can spill out from inside to outside. It basically creates a big communal area.”
Budiman says integration is popular with renovators. “These days people are wanting that when they do an extension or
renovation to the existing structure,” he says. If an existing living area doesn’t have an opening to the outside, renovators
can put in a big opening by using sliding doors or bifold doors that open directly on to the entertainment area.
Orientation of the entertainment area is important, Budiman says. To maximise sun in winter it should face north. “The
sun can penetrate into the living area in winter; in summer it’s quite shaded.”
People are also being more creative with their entertainment spaces. Some are installing outdoor fires and heaters so they
can entertain through the year.
“It’s quite nice in the winter to have a fire outside; it’s almost like when you go camping and get around the fire,”
Budiman says. He says integrated indoor and outdoor spaces “definitely add value”.
Another factor buyers and renovators are considering is retirement. Budiman says an integrated space on one floor is
preferred by older buyers with an eye to when they may be in a wheelchair.
At the top end of the market, particularly in lifestyle properties, integrated indoor and outdoor spaces are in huge demand.
Nicolette van Wijngaarden, director of Unique Estates, which specialises in luxury and lifestyle properties, says most of
the properties on her books have integrated spaces with “huge cavity sliders and lots of bifold doors so they open up”.
“By having that connection you bring the outdoors inside,” she says. “That’s what a lot of buyers look for and designers
aim to achieve.”
Van Wijngaarden sells many luxury and lifestyle properties to buyers who are rewarding themselves after years of hard
work. “Those properties are often an opportunity to have a really lovely time out,” she says.
“More than anything they want to be able to bring the outdoors in.”
Unique Estates is marketing Amileka, a Sharon Fraser-designed contemporary five-bedroom home in the Byron
hinterland with valley views. The asking price for the property, set on 10ha and 20 minutes’ drive from Byron, is more
than $5.5m. In 2009 it won the best house Australia at the CNBC International Asia Pacific Property Awards.
Amileka’s kitchen and living space opens on to the pool and a lawn with an entertainment space with open-air fire pit.
Van Wijngaarden says the design reflects the owners’ love of food and entertaining. The property has an on-site chef who
uses produce from the garden; it also runs Highland cattle. “You can prepare an amazing meal for guests with a good part
coming from the property,” she says.
“There’s a very good chance (the buyers) will be a successful couple with or without kids that lives in Melbourne, Sydney
and Brisbane, on the east coast in the CBD, who are wanting a luxury lifestyle holiday home where they can just
completely unwind and get away from the everyday grind.”
Van Wijngaarden says integrating indoor and outdoor spaces is a simple way to create luxury and space, which is why it is
driving buyer interest and prices.
“It doubles the size of the living area,” she says. “It allows you to create that whole relaxed indoor-outdoor entertainment
which is so popular.”
Integrated living a cup winner
ON Melbourne Cup day this year, Robyn and Ian Egan hosted a party at their recently renovated home in Melbourne’s
Balwyn North.
Soon after, a friend commented how everything flowed so well throughout the house during the party.
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A key part of the Egans’ renovation, designed by architect Santoso Budiman of SWG Studio, has been the integration of
the house’s indoor and outdoor spaces. A pavilion and the kitchen-living area now flow seamlessly on to two Himalayan
sandstone terraces, one with a barbecue.
“For entertaining it’s just ideal,” Robyn Egan says. “There is so much space. Everyone’s not crowded into a little section.”
On Melbourne Cup day, while some guests were inside and others outside, “they all felt as though they were in the same
room”.
“Now when you’re in the kitchen you’d swear you were standing outside,” Egan says. “You feel as though you are with
the guests.”
The Balwyn North house was built in the late 1920s. The Egans, who moved in with their children in 1990, have retained
the original front of the house and kept the formal lounge and dining room.
At the back of the house they created a new room, the pavilion, a huge area with a fireplace, a bar, powder room, shower
and store room. They knocked out a window and door and replaced them with bifold doors that open up to the terrace.
“There were no structural problems in knocking out walls,” Robyn Egan says.
The sunken living area was also raised so it was the same level as the rest of the house and the two outdoor terraces.
“Now everything is on the one level,” Egan says. “We don’t have to worry about stairs and different levels when we get
older.”
She says the renovation and the integrated indoor-outdoor space will definitely add value to the home. “It’s so much
bigger and looks so impressive.”
And she recommends others do it, particularly if they have guests around all the time.
“If you entertain it is really great,” she says. “On Melbourne Cup day we had people sitting in four different areas: the
northern terrace, family room, pavilion and western terrace.
“But we all still felt we were together; we all felt as though we were in the same room.”
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