Awards

1998 Winner RAIA Boral Timber Award

An ambition to celebrate the romanticism of boathouses and optimize a beautiful setting on Sydney’s Middle Harbour underpinned our approach to the design of the Northbridge Boatshed. The Boatshed sits amongst large rock outcrops at the bottom of a long, steep path that meanders it’s way down from the house through a magnificent garden. Upon arriving it feels as though you are removed from routine daily life to a quiet magical place on the water. The boatshed is used as a way of spending time in this beautiful place and over 20 years it is still being well utilised.

The building accommodates a dry dock for small craft with a multi-purpose space above surrounded by timber shutters that pivot up and out of the way. Use of local hardwoods and ingenious timber jointing are a feature of the structure and sandstone quarried from the site expresses the lower level of the structure. A generous copper shingle roof protects the body of the building.

The building, beautifully detailed in the style of a clinker boat, won the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Boral Timber award and has featured in the beautifully Illustrated Book “Boathouses” by Adam Mornement which surveys historical and contemporary landmark boatsheds and boathouses of the world.