Inside architect Richard Smith's Avalon renovation that was nine years in the making

In this new series, we take a look inside the homes of property creatives – from architects to landscape designers, we find out what it’s like when you become your own client. 

Richard Smith of Architectsmith has been an architect for more than 20 years and started working on his dream home in 2019 with his wife, Bianca Martin, an interior designer and manager at Editor Interiors. 

Having worked with a variety of clients across Sydney, their vision and desire for what their dream home would look like manifested. They bought in Avalon in 2012 and lived in the original house with their two children for seven years before embarking on a complete knockdown-rebuild. 

“It’s a beautiful site – I’d rate it as one of the top 10 sites in Avalon,” Smith says. “It has an east and a west aspect, which means we can see through the bush to the east and the ocean … we did a small clean-up of the original house, which really familiarised us with the site.” 

For any creative, when it comes to being the master and commander of your own home, the sky is the limit. Smith admits his design for the home could have been bigger and wilder, if it wasn’t for Martin acting as his sounding board.

“When you’re your own client, you don’t have that person saying, ‘Hang on, what’s that?’ so you’ve got to wonder in terms of the creative design process, whether or not you’re asking the right questions of yourself. But that’s when it was great to have Bianca there, we were bouncing off each other and critiquing each other’s ideas,” Smith explained.

Martin says they were very conscious to not allow the design to become impractical for the sake of being stylish. Instead, they were focused on creating a home that served their family.

“You don’t want to design for people to go, ‘Oh, that’s a designer’s house.’” We wanted to design for our family and how we live and just keep really true to that. It’s certainly not done for resale because there are lots of things that are very specific to our family.”

One of the major perks of being your own client is the ability to manage the project yourself. Smith and Martin agree that having more control over the build helped to make the process seamless. 

“It’s been a great process to get to this point probably because we were so in control of the design. The architect usually gets a question from the builder and usually has to say, ‘Okay, I’ll talk to the client’, but then the client’s skiing in France or something so, a week later, they get an answer back and the architect tells the builder and the builder tells the plumber and the plumber has already left,” Smith says.

Without the usual delays, the work on the house progressed quickly. Construction started during COVID-19, which also meant every tradesperson in the Northern Beaches was confined to the area and available for work.

“We got lucky in this aspect – no one could leave the country and construction was still going ahead – we had some guys even asking for more work,” Smith says.

Concrete, brick and Australian hardwood timber are used throughout the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home.  Soaring ceilings and thoughtfully-placed windows in the kitchen, living and dining areas allow natural light to stream in, and the view to the surrounding bushland is the hero.

The family moved into their home in April 2021, and Smith and Martin agree it’s everything they had hoped for. 

But after three years of living in the home, does Smith ever mull over how he could have done things differently?

“Architecture is a journey – you’re always growing your knowledge and how you design as a response to that new knowledge,” he says.

“I’d say if I designed the house again today, it would be different and I think architects have to grapple with that all the time.”