Suttons Beach Pavilion

The original Suttons Beach Pavilion was equally accommodating for the lone bather’s post swim reflection, or as host for a civic event, with the visiting masses huddled on every windowsill, chimney ledge, awning, balustrade and stair tread. For more than 80 years, this unpretentious Art Deco structure embraced every eventuality, serving its community as a much-loved piece of large scale, public furniture.

Our proposal for its contemporary commercial replacement seeks to provide the same level of humble (public) service. The project does this by actively giving over the building’s external edges to public use and the public domain.  Internally, commercial uses are lifted above the surrounds, to find aspect and engage vicariously with the public realm.  The proposed pavilion’s North and South edges are defined by shaded public amphitheatres, with clusters of stepped seating provided on the garden edge to the West.  The East is defined by a grand urban gesture – an 80-metre-long communal seat, set in a long low arc, addressing both the promenade and the beach.  This seat is set down below the adjacent commercial tenancies, allowing views over the public domain from the restaurants and cafés within.   This strategy not only allows commercial and public interests to co-exist, it allows them to contribute to, and enhance, one another.

The proposal pushes the footprint of the pavilion away from the base of the cliff to address the promenade as a public street. This strategy places the building at the very edge of social activity, it provides for a more ecological approach to bank stabilisation, and it caps any future expansion of private use into the public realm of the beach.  The seemingly inevitable seaside scourge of the post-project addition of PVC blinds is avoided, with an adaptable glazed edge provided for both outdoor dining and interior spaces.  The strategy to decouple the building from the cliff celebrates and enriches the existing bank and its vegetation, creating a landscaped courtyard that facilitates activation.  Families can relax here, as children play separated from both vehicular traffic and the water. This newly formed courtyard also creates a protected landscape experience from the recurrent, often oppressive, easterly breeze.

The resultant project responds to the unique condition that is Suttons Beach.  A new, truly public place, with a commercial heart, activated on all edges by public use.  A new, protected, family friendly landscape, with the verticality and interest of the cliff on one side, and the wide expanse of beach on the other.

The public spirit of the original, heritage listed, and much-loved pavilion is kept alive.

Competition Entry.  m3architecture in collaboration with Hogg and Lamb, RPS and Frank Turquoise.

(Those who know Prouvé’s work will know this quote is out of context, however, his words capture the spirit of a project which seeks to replicate the adaptable, flexible amenity of Suttons Beach original (beloved) Pavilion. A place people could lean into, scramble over, sit on and inhabit, in the same way they might a beloved piece of informal family furniture.)