‘Tama’ is short for Tamarama: a Sydney beach suburb, famous for its hedonistic surf culture, gradually being gentrified by a population that exchanges stock market tips while running barefoot to the ocean with a surfboard tucked under their arms. Geographically characterised by steep escarpments that surround the beach (far narrower than its near neighbours at Bondi and Bronte), the homes that cling to Tamarama’s hillsides are a mishmash of ticky-tacky boxes left by the previous generation of beach bunnies, now dwindled by skin carcinomas. Tama’s Tee Home was constructed on what was solid and reusable from the previous house. Approximately fifty-percent of the previous structure was kept, including the large sandstone retaining wall to the front of the home and the garage beneath. The new concrete ‘Tee’ structure to the front of the house was designed so that it would rest on the single point of the garage structure below that would bear the weight; this explains the ‘unipod’ shape to the front façade of the home and the need to provide it with a solid concrete structure.
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