Australian Architecture

Haines House by Christopher Polly in Newtown, Australia

Embedded in the rugged southern Australian landscape, the House at Hanging Rock comprises three volumes connected by a sweeping rhomboid roof. The Colorbond steel overhang is in a dark-gray shade called Monument.

The house is a simple cement and steel box with elements that fold outwards to create privacy screens where needed. A perforated aluminum fence unravels from the building down toward the street. The material was selected to deter local graffiti artists from leaving their mark. Instead, a recycled brick wall serves as an appropriate canvas for street art.

A rugged exterior of spotted gum cladding and corrugated Spandek material shelter the prefabricated, off-the-grid getaway.

Large gum trees offer a natural barrier for the house. Harkness designed the house's footprint in order to minimize the effect on tree roots. “The retained trees offer a sense of layering and age that new vegetation won’t be able to for a long time,” Harkness says.

The home, clad in natural Australian timber, enjoys a sense of lightness thanks to slender columns that let it float over the dunes. The driveway and entry, at the rear of the building, have an understated design to build to the interior's magnificent ocean views. Firm director Phil Snowdon explains, “By creating an architectural form that draws your eye and leads you up the steep driveway, we could engage new visitors in a welcoming process that first reveals the object and then slowly reveals the main event, being the view."

This home in the village of Fairhaven gazes over the area’s longest beach and an open sea that stretches all the way to Antarctica.