Mapleton House is designed for a two-person household, responding to its locale on the ridgeline of suburban-rural site in the Blackall Range — the traditional land of the Gubbi Gubbi and Jinibara peoples. A shared Dreamtime story tells of a feud between two warriors, Ninderry and Coolum, over a girl named Maroochy, who eventually fled to the Blackall Range hinterland, forming a deep connection to the land.

The compact house was strategically placed below the busy main street to minimise traffic noise and open up views of Mt Ninderry and Mt Coolum from the public footpath — a proposal welcomed by the local community. A tactile and utilitarian zinc exterior was chosen to allow the house to recede into the landscape as it patinas over time, while accentuating a traditional pitched roof form to comply with the Blackall Range Local Plan. Endemic plant species have been integrated into the surrounding landscape to connect with the local flora, softening the boundary between the house and the public stair.

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Repainted floor and wall tiles, and window frames. Roller blinds fixed to transom height for reinstated *character. Three pendants replaced at amended heights. Existing counter re-clad and embellished with a faux inlay motif. Off the shelf brackets of varying sizes fixed to walls to hold up some utility but mostly decor. In all, hopefully not that overlookable nor a standout, but something that feels present, with character. Irrespective of if it has been sitting there for a while or just more recently.

*On character: roller blinds instated at transom height previously removed by an earlier renovation.

Text provided by the architects.

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Located on the Great Ocean Road with a short walk down to Eagle Rock, the home’s namesake, this project sits amongst coastal walks, surf beaches, dirt roads, and sandstone cliffs. A discreet and unassuming timber building, hidden in the back of a deep bush garden, this freestanding addition is a robust retreat to suit a family or couple for short-term stays. A private breakaway space from a larger holiday home that supports it.

The design is centred on a long array of tall, deep revealed, blackbutt timber window frames that open the small building’s spaces onto itself, and its garden views beyond. Raw hardwearing galvanised steel frames border the door and window openings, with repeat folded sheet profiles forming a spandrel fascia line above. Chains drop down, encouraging the new landscaping to reach up and slowly embrace the higher levels of the facade over time.

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The Love Shack is a built prototype for material reuse, design for disassembly (DfD), and small-scale functionality. Its conceptual framework is governed by resource efficiency and experimentation. The core philosophy centers on minimizing waste while maximizing lifespan in an effort to reframe predetermined conceptions of how salvaged materials should look and perform.

Functionally, the studio space has the ability to transform from a bedroom to a living room to an office space, providing a flexible extension to the existing family home. The facade facing the existing house includes operable solid doors that allow for privacy when closed and, when open, allow the pavilion to feel like an extension of the backyard. Highlight windows provide natural ventilation year-round and even indirect light throughout the day.

Due to the rigid modular grid imposed on the triangular corner site, we were left with an irregularly shaped space where we chose to locate the bathroom. The bathroom features a trapezoidal-shaped column centred in the room to house all the services and create programmatic delineation within a confined space. The design approach centered on waste minimization includes material re-use, DfD; modularity, minimising material types, and dry fixing details. The 1.2m grid and 2.1m datum were derived from standard sheet sizes defined in the base logic of the plan and elevations.

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On 100 acres of eucalypt forest at top of 60 m cliffs, 430 m above sea level. Spectacular views over the Hunter Valley wine region. No public services. Extreme bushfire danger. Electricity from photovoltaic solar array. Water from roof to corrugated steel tanks. Water heating from solar panels. ‘Brown’ water to septic tank. ‘Grey’ water irrigates a walled ‘Permaculture’ garden. Wood stoves for heating and baking. Mobile phone and fax. Three buildings – house, garages, stables. House parallel to the cliffs faces 33˚ east of solar north – winter morning sun, cooling summer sea breezes. Walled garden orientated on the points of the compass. Thus generated the courtyard. House, corrugated steel ‘fly roof’ on standard steel agricultural shed frames – large low cost area for rainwater and shade. Beneath are two habitable modules with curved steel sub-roofs either side of an open breezeway with retained existing recycled brick fireplace. Concrete block walls for thermal mass insulated and clad on outside with mini-orb steel and eucalypt planks. Eaves exclude summer sun, winter sun admitted to thermal mass of concrete floors and yellow curved thermal wall. Perforated mini-orb steel shutters for bushfire protection and sun shade. Standard steel shed frames to garages and stables with roof and walls of corrugated steel. Bloodlines from Australian rural sheds. Low cost. Owner built.

La entrada Autonomous House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The room feels slightly too small, not uncomfortably so, but still there is something about the space.

The combination of the threshold head height, the steps down into the space and the slope of the ceiling give a vague feeling of pitching forward, an insinuated disquiet.

The internal finishes are neutral, timber below white painted plaster. Curiosity is focused, everything leads to the window that pushes forward into space above the garden.

Within the bay window, right at the edge, there is a place to stop, at the scale of a person, or to share intimately with another. It is a place to notice life in the canopy, the scallop pattern of the crashing waves on sand in the bay, movement on the ridge, or the whoop of approaching guests.

Text provided by the architects.

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The Ruxton Rise Residence is based on the clients’ three key values for life; family, health and integrity. The home isn’t just a physical structure, but also a structure of the family’s beliefs. The objective is to create a little bit of something precious rather than a lot of something mediocre. The focus became on the experience rather than the building form or visual statement.

The design for the Ruxton Rise Residence is approached as a contemporary take on the Beaumaris mid-century modern home, responding to the home’s unique sense of place and its rich architectural history.

The street elevation is nestled into the fall of the site, giving nothing away of what is within. Turning its focus inward, the internal courtyard is the heart and focus of the building. The landscape, and the movement and shadows it creates, provides a calming effect that permeates the whole house.

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The premise was an interpretation of an Australian Federation Farmhouse, sited on a hilltop in Carrickalinga.

With extreme winds, we manipulated the traditional farmhouse, stretching the perimeter to a square, whilst removing the center for the courtyard. With the verandah on the ‘wrong’ side we inverted the roof. This creates a low eave to the protected garden allowing solar gain and solar access.

The apertures were aligned, framing the views of the landscape. Industrial shutters filter the amount of light desired, tuning the house to the seasons. All rooms have dual aspect to both sea and the garden.

Exterior walls and shutters are clad in heritage galvanized corrugated iron, folding over the ridge, and lining the internal valleyed roof. Structural columns were used as downpipes harvesting rainwater.

The dwelling is true to ‘place’, minimising its impact to its landscape and carbon footprint.

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The Kyneton House is defined by its sense of singularity; both as an architectural element within its local context and in the spatial qualities of each room within.

The design process began with a single wall gesture, a repeating brickwork cup. This element was arranged to define the boundaries of the home and of the individual rooms, with the recess of each providing a nesting place for seating, kitchen, study etc. Always returning inwards, this repeating motif formed a thickness to the home’s exterior, providing a deepened reveal to every opening.

The celebration of material texture is balanced with the precisely folded, ceiling voids that define and light each of the spaces in the home.

Our ambition for the house is for it to act as a reference point to the passing of time, becoming a canvas for the change of light and the theatre of seasonal change occurring outside.

Text provided by the architect.

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The Cottage School is a unique, small, independent, secular, community primary school. It is located in Queen Street, in Kangaroo Bay. The school prioritises the environment as a critical framework for learning.

Cohabiting a series of Federation weatherboard worker’s cottages, the School has established a unique pedagogical structure which borrows heavily from the intimacy and domesticity of its setting.

A new Green Cottage ‘addition’ was conceived as a unifying element between the existing external teaching and play environments, and the domestic scale of the original cottage. A verandah forms an extension of the educational realm, for woodwork, seating, and water play. Along this covered edge, an operable facade serves as a ‘streetscape’ for displays, and encourages imaginative play at thresholds. The sensorial environment is carefully orchestrated, through subtle acoustic and lighting. The new interiors are composed through a singular, warm and calming palette, which ‘backgrounds’ the experience of learning.

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