This project presented an opportunity to design a modest yet purposeful home that could accommodate the needs of a young family with the potential to generate passive income. The property’s triangular shape, sloping terrain, and proximity to a public walking trail posed challenges, including creating privacy, maximising views, and managing the narrow roadside access.
The brief evolved to prioritise a three-bedroom, two-bathroom family home with an adjoining self-contained ancillary dwelling. The design needed to balance shared and independent living – suitable for guests, tenants, or extended family – while addressing bushfire ratings and managing construction costs through efficient planning and material choices.
The clients sought a contemporary, low-maintenance home with a strong sense of character. They were drawn to high ceilings, split-level forms, and textured finishes and wanted the house to feel grounded in its setting – visually recessive but architecturally expressive.
The design responds to the site’s complexities with a confident composition of bold, low-lying forms arranged around a central courtyard and breezeway. This planning strategy establishes three distinct zones: a self-contained studio to the north-east, garage and utility areas to the south-east, and the L-shaped primary residence on a lower level to the south and west. The spatial arrangement supports flexibility of use while ensuring privacy between the different living areas.
Stepped levels follow the site’s slope, creating subtle transitions as one moves through the home. The breezeway acts as a sheltered spine between built forms, offering a moment of pause – drawing attention to the shifting light, views, and textures that define the outdoor spaces.
At the heart of the home is a central courtyard – a private, north-facing outdoor room that draws natural light into the adjacent living areas. As both an arrival point and passage, it connects daily routines to the outdoors, attuning occupants to the rhythms of the six seasons.
To the west of the courtyard, the open-plan living areas extend onto an elevated terrace shaded by a vine-covered pergola. This outdoor space offers layered views through the trees to the lake beyond, quietly mediating between the private interior life and the public walking trail below.
A simple black and white material palette reinforces the clarity of the built form. Carefully spaced rooflines create moments of visual tension and calm, where filtered light and framed glimpses of sky and treetops animate the architecture. The surrounding eucalypts remain a constant presence, anchoring the home to its place.
