KURREKI
Kurreki is a purpose built retreat, in the tiny village of Seal Rocks on the North Coast of NSW. Surrounded by both the Myall Lakes National Park and the Great Lakes Marine Park, Kurreki offers a welcome respite from the increasingly urbanised sprawl of the cities.
The design is intentionally a cross between camping and luxury accommodation. It employs strategies designed to allow inhabitants to relax and unwind. With all spaces opening to the outside, a connectedness with the natural elements results.
The building has a tough exterior to provide privacy, bushfire protection and a sense of solitude. Spaces encircle a central deck and garden, with all rooms opening one wall up to the central space. Rather than glass and flyscreens for the bedrooms, there are rollershutters and mosquito nets, to achieve the feel of camping. An added benefit is the sky view that is created by establishing a circular perimeter.
Bathing facilities are stripped back to the bare essentials, a single toilet, in fibre cement partitioning, and a huge double shower, which can open fully to the deck with a curtain, or can be closed off for total privacy.
The building is also low impact, with a worm farm treating sewer waste onsite, all water used onsite collected from the roof and a variety of other water and energy saving devices.
Materials throughout are honest and serviceable. External cladding is unpainted compressed cement sheet. Roller shutters are plain zincalume, joinery is concrete formply, left unfinished. To counter the harsh exterior, Murobond colours are used extensively inside, to enliven the spaces and give a colour link to nature.
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