Architect: Wood Marsh
Location: Ocean Grove, Victoria, Australia
Year Completed: 2019
An exterior focused project capturing the main building blending into the landscape. In contrast the patrol tower is wedged into the dunes and juts out like a sand stone rock formation, with its own cave like overhang handy for passers-by to shelter from the ever changing weather. The afternoon sun slowly setting provides long shadows a magic quality of light leading out to Bass Straight.
“Leveraging key contextual influences, Ocean Grove Surf Life Saving Club takes inspiration from the corrosive nature of Victoria’s sandstone coastline to guide its form and materiality. It captures a robust ruggedness, through the ‘dune’ and ‘stack’ components, represented in the relationship between the horizontality of the club building obscured in the dunes and the verticality of the more prominent control tower. Each element appears to be softened by years of weathering.” — Wood Marsh