With most Australians living within 50 kilometres from the country’s more than 10,000 beaches, it’s no wonder that beach life is an integral part of the Aussie culture. Indeed, oceanfront pavilions, the quintessential feature of beach life, appeared as early as the beginning of the twentieth century to cater to a growing number of bathers, and later on surfers, who flocked to the beaches when the ban on daytime ocean bathing was lifted in 1903. Built much later, in 1987 to be exact, Burleigh Pavilion at Burleigh Heads on Australia’s Gold Coast, a metropolitan area south of Brisbane famous for its long sandy beaches and extensive network of man-made canals, has become nonetheless a local landmark, not least because it was built on top of an iconic 1950s swimming pool. So when Sydney-based architectural practice Alexander & CO was commissioned to renovate and expand the dilapidating structure, they not only had to design a robust and easily maintained multipurpose venue that would appeal equally to guests who walked straight off the beach to those enjoying a smart lunch or dinner, as well as prevent flooding from storm surges, but they also had to reaffirm and reinvigorate its status as a local landmark.
