A
lthough close to the ground, Georgina Moore and Adrian
Reis’s modernist-inspired retreat is a refined treehouse of
sorts. Three lovely trees – a silver birch, desert ash and heir-
loom pear – determined its precise location on the couple’s
four-hectare property and continue to infuse the semidetached
pavilion with texture, tranquillity and shade.
“We decided a more meaningful connection with the landscape
could be achieved if the building gave way to and interacted with the
trees,” says Nicholas Russo, director of Branch Studio Architects,
which the clients commissioned for an extension to their inherited
1990s house.
The architect conceived a rectangular form for the generous
ensuite, dressing and bedroom spaces, and made a small indentation
partway down its length for a miniature courtyard. This frames the
silver birch and marks the junction of bathing and other program
areas. Nicholas then pressed out windows to the north and south to
frame the stretching ash and old-fashioned pear respectively.
A series of platforms was introduced to gradually raise the
floor level by a metre and create a subtly different relationship to
landscape in each section. Consequently, one takes in a grey mottled
tree trunk from the courtyard, while the western glazing is heavily
fringed with leaves.
Inspiration was taken from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s
Farnsworth House with respect to circulation and transparency.
The house’s central corridor was narrowed, then parted into “his”
and “her” paths that skirt dressing and bedroom perimeters and
a bank of fine three-quarter-height joinery, while the latter path
allows air and light to circulate freely above it. “The plan has a very
purposeful flow,” says Nicholas. “Pushing circulation to the edges
of the space left the central joinery to divide the main sections.”
This effectively obstructs views down the central corridor into the
private spaces, enhances the pavilion’s connection to the exterior
and creates a transparent corridor down to the courtyard.
Each of the clients has their own “thinking window” and cluster
of robes, which were informed by their individual characters and
interests: Georgina’s faces the stable, garden and chooks, while
Adrian’s window looks out to the sturdy ash and is surrounded by
joinery that has the stripped-back feel of a locker room. “The only
02 The circulation and
transparency of this
retreat were inspired
by Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe’s Farnsworth House.03 A large window box,
extruding from the
rammed-earth wall,
frames views of the fruit
trees and stables beyond.issue with my side is you have to learn to go to sleep by moonlight,”
says Adrian ironically.
The architect dodged the architectural taboo of the bedroom
being accessed through a bathroom by separating the ensuite into
two parts, with basins and a toilet alcove on one side of the corridor
and an indoor shower, outdoor shower and elegant bath on the other.
The bath, which sits on the interior–exterior threshold, becomes
open-air when the full folding glass doors are opened. Rammed-
earth walls and a rusted steel grate threaded with star jasmine and
white mandevilla flowers protect bathers from observation and the
elements. Along the southern side of the bedroom, informal seating
shapeshifts from sideboard to dresser, then day bed to window
seat, while the angled joinery that screens the bedroom from the
house morphs into a low bedhead. “One-dimensional spaces can
result in unimaginative houses,” says Nicholas of the importance
of multifunction in design. “Why can’t a bedroom be your library,
study and sitting room too?”
From the main bedroom, the view is through full westerly
glazing, angled like a Stanley knife blade to the setting sun. The
window also frames a stand of natives in the middle distance –
eucalypts, wattles, she-oak and bottlebrush – behind a soon-to-be-
filled creek bed. The full-height windows work well here, because
this end of the pavilion is usually just occupied at the bookends of
the day, when temperatures are milder, activities slower. That said,
sheer dark curtains and blockout blinds are available when needed.
To further encourage a sense of refuge, volumes are lit naturally
or indirectly and mainly organic and raw materials were chosen for
their integrity and non-synthetic nature. Spare brass detailing has
also been used throughout, like design punctuation accenting the
sophistication at the heart of Branch Studio Architects’ design.
Deft circulation and glazing mean that textured surfaces –
plywood, rammed earth, honed bluestone and a mock-oak veneer- change with the weather, light and trees. “In overcast weather
the rammed earth feels darker and heavier and the timber reflects
a monochromatic grey light,” says Nicholas. However, a fine day
draws out the grain and warmer tones of earth and timber and
scatters a dynamic filigree over ceiling, glass and walls.