The small but experimental granny flat that provides a perfect escape

The Love Shack in Bondi is designed to serve several purposes: It could be a guest room for a friend or grandparent, an office, or a living room for teenagers to escape from adults – or vice versa.

Designed by a young architectural practice, Second Edition, the one-room backyard pavilion with an en suite bathroom is getting a lot of love in this year’s awards from the NSW chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects. The 30 sq m standalone addition was shortlisted on Monday in three categories, including sustainability.

Julia Dangar at the Love Shack, an extension to her Bondi home. The Love Shack is a prototype built to minimise the massive amount of construction and demolition waste ending up in landfill. Credit: Louise Kennerley

Made from salvaged materials and designed so most of it can be dismantled and reused, Love Shack was a prototype for how to reduce waste in the construction industry, said Second Edition director Shahar Cohen. “The easiest way to reduce waste, and to reduce carbon, is to build less,” she said.

It may be beautiful and experimental, but owners Will Dangar and wife Julia, founders of the landscape architect company Dangar Barin Smith, still call it a granny flat, or the shed.

“It suits our personality because we are not wankers,” Will said. “It is a granny flat that serves multiple purposes, it has a bathroom and a bed that folds up.”

It also fills a tight corner of the block that was home to the trampoline their teenage children have grown out of using.

Julia said they worried they would lose space by putting the freestanding extension in the furthest corner of the small garden. “But we haven’t. It’s enhanced the space,” she said.

The backyard pavilion was designed with oversized doors that open at a 90-degree angle to showcase the garden.

Monday’s shortlist of finalists represents about 35 per cent of 280 projects entered across NSW.

Perhaps the hardest job will be for the judges of the public architecture category, who will have to decide which of the new metro stations is best. Barangaroo, Martin Place, Waterloo and Central Station are among the projects shortlisted in the public category.

The shortlist also includes the Sirius redevelopment by BVN, the build-to-rent apartments Indi by Bates Smart, and new homes, ovals, sports pavilions, school buildings and renovations.

Compared with 99 per cent of the projects shortlisted, Love Shack is a minnow. In the small projects category, it will compete against the fancy dunnies of Bath Haus by Burrow Architecture and a new amenity block at Callan Park Waterfront by Stanic Harding.

In the sustainability awards, it faces off against mega-projects including Bankstown City Campus by Walker Corporation for Western Sydney University. It was also shortlisted in the category for emerging architects and graduates.

Second Edition was established by Cohen and registered architect Amy Seo in response to the massive amount of construction and demolition waste ending up in landfill.

Cohen said nearly everything, from the floor to the doors and the concrete in the foundations, was salvaged, and, except for the bathroom tiles, designed to have another life or two in the future.

Everything was designed to be dismantled, too. Most of the materials were locally sourced to minimise the carbon emissions of transport.

Cohen said the foundations used “overpour concrete” from nearby construction sites because building sites always ordered extra. “That’s usually dumped on the floor and put in the skip,” she said.

Before construction began, the practice distributed moulds to other sites to collect overpour so it was not wasted.

Bits of marble left over from another project were crushed to render the facade, and the tallowwood floorboards on the walls were rescued from another property.

Cohen said it took a special client to back this kind of project: “Saying to someone that instead of buying a piece of timber from Bunnings, here’s a piece of timber, but you need to alter it to make it work. While the material was often free, it was barely anything compared with the cost of the labour.”

As for the name Love Shack, Cohen said it was a nickname used in construction that stuck.

Julie Power is a lay member of the sustainability jury of the NSW Institute for Architects 2025 awards.

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