Designing and building SOL, the Bondi Beach duplex that set a suburb record

In December 2025, SOL sold for $9.4 million, setting a new suburb record for Bondi Beach. SHORE was responsible for the residence from start to finish, with the architectural design and the build delivered by one team for the owners. It is the clearest demonstration yet of what an integrated design and build approach can do for a property, and for the people who own it.

One team from first sketch to handover

Most residences in Sydney are delivered by two separate parties. An architect designs, the drawings go to tender, and a builder prices and builds what is on the page. Every gap between the two gets filled with variations, compromises or guesswork, and the details are usually the first thing to suffer.

SHORE works differently. Our architects and builders sit in the same practice, so design decisions are made alongside the people who will build them. At SOL, that meant the curved walls, floating staircases and skylights were resolved for construction while they were still being drawn, rather than value managed out later. The owners dealt with one team, one program and one point of accountability for the entire project.

Designing SOL

The brief was a Mediterranean-inspired coastal residence a block back from the beach, built for barefoot living. Our design gave the four-bedroom semi a soft, sculptural form: curved walls and floating staircases wrapped in hand-applied micro cement, travertine and stone underfoot, and herringbone timber running through the living spaces.

High ceilings and curved skylights bring light deep into the plan, so the rooms shift with the sun through the day. Feature lighting is placed to pick out the joinery and the curves after dark. At the front, a cacti garden gives SOL its own presence on the street and carries the Mediterranean brief past the front door.

Why the build matters as much as the design

Every finish at SOL is unforgiving. Curved micro cement shows every flaw in the wall behind it. Herringbone timber shows every error in the set out. A skylight that is a few millimetres off reads as a mistake from every room below it. These are the details that separate a residence from a good-looking render, and they only come together when the people drawing them and the people building them are working to the same standard.

Because SHORE held both the design and the construction, there was no handover point where intent could be lost. The same team that drew the curves was on site forming them.

A suburb record for the owners

SOL went to auction with a price guide of $8 million and sold to local buyers for $9.4 million, a new record for Bondi Beach. McGrath's James Ledgerwood, who ran the sale, described it as "the biggest campaign in Bondi Beach in the last couple of years."

A sale price is shaped by the market, but buyers were responding to something specific: a residence where nothing had been compromised between the drawings and the finished rooms. For the owners, the decision to design and build with one team is now visible in the result.

Planning a design and build project in the Eastern Suburbs

SHORE is an integrated design and build practice delivering high-end residences and boutique multi-residential projects across Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, Lower North Shore, Northern Beaches and Inner West. If you are planning a new residence, a dual occupancy or a major renovation and want architecture and construction handled by one team, [get in touch]. See more of SOL on its [project page].

The build behind the address.