Architecture Wednesday: Margaret River

This is a house is made for “getting away from it all.”

Located in an existing clearing within a section of Australia’s marri/jarrah bushland near the Margaret River, this “bush pavilion” was created to mimic camping under a simple sheltering tarp.

The home’s simple rectangular plan is separated into sleeping and living zones and delineated by a change in floor level, as well as a grounding rammed earth wall that continues through the house into the outdoors.

Taking cues from the Californian cases study houses of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, a structural grid of prefabricated steel frames allowed the main support structure to be erected in a day and for infill timber framing to be subsequently carried out by the owner-builder under the protection of a simple single roof plane. The galvanized steel framing is expressed both internally and externally and its mottled patina continues to change as it ages.

And because you’ll be wanting to get away from anything and everything, environmental sustainability is intrinsic to the design: passive measures like cross flow ventilation cool the home in summer cooling, while calculated eave overhangs allow warm winter sun to heat the house; in addition, there are active measures such as power self sufficiency from a ground mounted solar array, a solar hot water system and a worm farm blackwater filtration system that irrigates the garden with nutrient rich water.

It’s back to the simple things in life, and away from it all.

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