Architect : Nicholas Burns Associates
Location: Johanna beach, Victoria, Australia

Guest Contribution by Sofia Ortlund Foutris

This luxurious Australian family house is placed next-door to a national park. The building is strategically placed on 100 acres unspoiled bush land. The house which is build with steel, glass, concrete and rammed earth include four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open kitchen, a dining/living area and a cellar.
   The architects of the house, Nicholas Burns Associates did not only considering incorporating the extensive view over the sea, but also to create a synergy between the house and its surrounding landscape which include endangered flora and fauna. When one is viewing the house from below and with the marvelous sea in the back, it is easy to get an image of a contemporary and experimental version of a timber house placed close to a ski resort, rather than a house with the view of the beach. This imagery is mainly formed by the impressive fireplace that is placed in the centre of the living area. But it is also the summitry between the big glass walls surrounding almost the whole building and the rammed earth façade that transports the viewer to a place were solid and transparent elements meet like when heavy timber meets clear snow.

   Although, it is as one with the nature this house has to be viewed. Nicholas Burns associates describe their creation as “a discrete insertion into the landscape, a journey of gradual and layered concealment and opening of the landscape and ocean; contrasting contraction and expansion, heavy and light, opaque and transparent”. Evidently, it is in the clash between the different elements, within and surrounding the building, that gives this kind of architecture its real beauty.

all photos by  Earl Carter