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Design of a restaurant in a popular Darwin nature reserve makes the most of an extraordinary site and extemporizes on its potent history.
Troppo Architects was founded in 1980 with the laudable aim of promoting good tropical architecture in Australia's Top End. The Darwin-based practice received a Northern Territory grant to examine the history of the region's architecture.1 That research has informed their work, though the influence of such seminal figures as Richard Leplastrier and Glenn Murcutt must have played its part. With work throughout the Northern Territory and beyond, the practice has a reputation for spare intelligent architecture that has evolved out of the architects' feeling for tradition and landscape. Not least, their buildings are designed for the climate.
Pee Wees at the Point stands surrounded by flame trees on a spectacular site in a nature reserve at the eastern point of Darwin Harbour and Fannie Bay. Bordered by a road to the north, the site slopes gently away to the south towards a rocky foreshore and the sea. On this side the restaurant opens out onto a wide verandah and green lawn with views of the Bay and Beagle Gulf.