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Mountainside House
Mountainside House
NSW, Australia
Project Featured on Oct 24, 2016
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Other Projects by Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects
Mountainside House
NSW, Australia
Project Featured on Oct 24, 2016
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2013
SIZE
1000 sqft - 3000 sqft
Sited on a beautiful mountainside, this house surveys an extraordinarily varied landscape; a dramatic sandstone escarpment to the north; a steep, forested valley to the northwest, and broad, agricultural plains and the coastal horizon to the east.
A series of angular retaining walls and terraces anchor the project into the hillside, carving out a platform for the pure geometric form of the building to rest on. To the east the house is suspended above a open landscape of distant farms, townships and the coastline. Day-to-day life in the house is characterised by movement between the contrasting intimacy and drama of these two conditions.
The envelope of the house is a series of frames that offer focused encounters with distinct landscape elements. The frames take scale cues from their particular outlook and make a series of habitable edges to the surrounding garden, terraces and landscape. These threshold spaces are considered as ‘rooms’ having equal importance to those within the house itself.
From the interior of the house these spaces also conceal sliding doors and shutters that allow the house to draw in or exclude a changeable series of landscape vistas in response to light, mood and weather. Shutters and screens provide bushfire protection, but are more generously conceived as devices to adjust the house’s microclimate. The depth of the thresholds allows many of the doors to remain open during rainfall so that the house is constantly filled with the sounds and scents of the surrounding bush.
The house is designed for four adults to occupy fulltime, but a small library room can be extended to form a large dormitory to accommodate family and friends in holiday periods. Self sufficient in terms of water and waste, the property provides multiple energy sources for heating to minimize power usage.
A muscular concrete and blockwork shell structurally anchors the cantilevers and provides bushfire protection. Within, burnished plaster subverts the weight of the concrete, glancing light and reflected views along walls. Limed plywood blade trusses amplify early eastern and late western light captured through venting clerestory windows. Plywood and timber finishes line bedrooms to soften the enclosure of these contained spaces of retreat.
Externally, recycled turpentine and brickwork leaven the concrete shell with integrally muted, richly textured and weathered natural finishes. The client is busy making and tending a prolific garden that drapes over the hillside above the house. Regeneration and weed control has reinstated the bushland fringes of the site, while closer to the house brightly coloured and perfumed cultural plantings are beginning to spill over the terrace walls. The client’s family has made a series of dry stone walls from boulders collected during construction, gently formalising pathways and stopping points along the site’s northern edge.
A series of angular retaining walls and terraces anchor the project into the hillside, carving out a platform for the pure geometric form of the building to rest on. To the east the house is suspended above a open landscape of distant farms, townships and the coastline. Day-to-day life in the house is characterised by movement between the contrasting intimacy and drama of these two conditions.
The envelope of the house is a series of frames that offer focused encounters with distinct landscape elements. The frames take scale cues from their particular outlook and make a series of habitable edges to the surrounding garden, terraces and landscape. These threshold spaces are considered as ‘rooms’ having equal importance to those within the house itself.
From the interior of the house these spaces also conceal sliding doors and shutters that allow the house to draw in or exclude a changeable series of landscape vistas in response to light, mood and weather. Shutters and screens provide bushfire protection, but are more generously conceived as devices to adjust the house’s microclimate. The depth of the thresholds allows many of the doors to remain open during rainfall so that the house is constantly filled with the sounds and scents of the surrounding bush.
The house is designed for four adults to occupy fulltime, but a small library room can be extended to form a large dormitory to accommodate family and friends in holiday periods. Self sufficient in terms of water and waste, the property provides multiple energy sources for heating to minimize power usage.
A muscular concrete and blockwork shell structurally anchors the cantilevers and provides bushfire protection. Within, burnished plaster subverts the weight of the concrete, glancing light and reflected views along walls. Limed plywood blade trusses amplify early eastern and late western light captured through venting clerestory windows. Plywood and timber finishes line bedrooms to soften the enclosure of these contained spaces of retreat.
Externally, recycled turpentine and brickwork leaven the concrete shell with integrally muted, richly textured and weathered natural finishes. The client is busy making and tending a prolific garden that drapes over the hillside above the house. Regeneration and weed control has reinstated the bushland fringes of the site, while closer to the house brightly coloured and perfumed cultural plantings are beginning to spill over the terrace walls. The client’s family has made a series of dry stone walls from boulders collected during construction, gently formalising pathways and stopping points along the site’s northern edge.
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