Case study · Award winner
Oceano St, Copacabana.
A steel-framed home that cantilevers out over a steep coastal block, engineered to make the most of the slope rather than fight it.
Location
Copacabana, NSW
Role
Lead structural engineer
Site fall
≈ 40%
Max cantilever
≈ 7 m
The brief
A steep block, and an outlook worth holding.
On the Central Coast the best blocks are often the hardest ones. Oceano St falls sharply across its width, the kind of gradient that usually means deep excavation, heavy retaining and a house pushed back off its best aspect.
The brief asked for the opposite: a home that worked with the slope, claimed its outlook, and disturbed as little of the site as possible doing it.
The engineering
Reach out, don't dig in.
The answer was steel. Rather than terrace the block, the structure projects from a compact footprint, cantilevering living space well beyond its supports so the house reaches over the fall of the land instead of displacing it.
As lead structural engineer, Rise designed the steel frame that makes those spans possible, balancing the cantilevers, keeping the structure efficient, and limiting the excavation and disturbance a slope like this usually demands.
The outcome
Recognised by the industry, and by our own.
The completed home earned a 2022 ASI Steel Excellence Award and, in 2024, an ACSE Small Project Award — recognition from both the steel industry and Rise's own profession that the engineering was not just sound, but exceptional.
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