Celebrating Australia’s best residential architecture, excellence has been rewarded by ‘House Awards’, an annual program, in eight categories, with the best architecturally designed house receiving the premier award of ‘Australian House of the Year’. Set within a historic farming property in Tasmania, Shearer’s Quarters by John Wardle Architects, won the house of the year award which is both a working farm and a place of retreat. ‘This deft touch has created a house that is an exemplar for contemporary residential architecture, simultaneously functional and beautiful. This apparently simple house has an effortless relationship to the built, cultivated and natural landscape.’ (House Awards Jury) More information on the awards after the break.
New House over 200m²: Big Hill by Kerstin Thompson Architects
This house is a direct design response to site, form and utility of material, which combine to create a solid, robust shelter against the Southern Ocean’s exposure. Disclosure of the view is subverted by the compressed triangular plan, yet the experience is heightened at the place where the prospect is most revered. In the words of the architect, “the right angle triangle is most productively aligned with the forces of the site. The long side of the triangle acts as retaining wall struck against the slope of the land.” Inside this house, rooms slide into each other, dissolving the problem of further enclosure. The plan is unrestricted, and a sense of infinite space is achieved. Materials are reduced to a palette of concrete, glass and timber, underpinning the desire for a coastal retreat to be basic and creating an embedded modesty. This house is deceptively simple and its actual quality belies this simplicity, recalling the origins of the shack, creating an authentic, contemporary retreat.
