The brief was for a simple 3 bedroom home with clean modern lines that allowed maximum winter sunlight and to capitalise on the amazing views north over their fruit plantation and east to the bush of Lamington National Park.  It needed to be all on one level as it is their future retirement home but currently to be used mainly as a weekender.

As this location gets very cold in winter, it was best to orientate the house to have maximum width to the north to really heat the house up and also appreciate their rural property and fruit trees.  The ground sloped to the east, so tanks were located underneath.  The budget was very tight so we kept it simple.

Red soil is a part of the environment up there, so to blend in with this, we chose rammed earth as a feature wall that extends inside as a blade wall.  We also chose spotted gum weatherboards externally with a reddish stain.  With these clients it was all about the environment and being at one with nature.

Due to the sloping site we generally needed lightweight materials, but the western portion of the house anchors to the ground (the garage).  Naturally it’s best to have the garage as a slab on ground and this design took advantage of the direction of slope to enable that.  From there on the house floated out over the ground.