BEACH PALACE HOTEL

The Beach Palace Hotel is an iconic building at the north end of Coogee Beach, Sydney. It has had may lives so far, aquarium, fun park, public pool, auto mechanic, bar, nightclub and restaurant complex. We worked on the latest proposed reincarnation as a ground floor restaurant and bar and three levels of luxury apartments over.

The outside skin of the building is heritage listed and so was unable to be substantially modified (even though the original walls were damaged in a storm and completely rebuilt in the 1980’s). The existing dome in the centre of the building was also an important historic symbol and the ‘idea’ of the dome needed to be retained, if not the original fabric.

The key challenge was to design apartments that were light and breezy when the perimeter walls were fixed and the floor plate is very deep. We ended up cutting a north south void through the centre of the building down to ground level so as to allow sun to reach deep inside. We also replace the steel dome with an operable glazed dome that would help with light and ventilation and also create a dramatic three storey covered outdoor entry space to the apartments.