Best of Both – Mt Eliza House by MRTN Architects
As a hybrid approach, Mt Eliza House brings together a familiar urban sensibility with a more rural and removed robustness. MRTN Architects proposes a series of tectonic forms that follow the undulating terrain, responding through a weighted anchoring to the site and framing views outward.
Sitting on the border of Earimil Creek Reserve, Mt Eliza House is enviably perched just 300 metres from the beach while also feeling privately entrenched within the natural landscape. The combined use of warm and textural materiality together with a formally bold approach responds to the site with confidence and offers a place of shelter amongst its context. The bringing of the urban comforts and a refined restraint together in its setting elevates the traditional coastal home and embeds a known familiarity. Completely fossil-free, the home is disarming in its consciousness and, despite the heaviness of its comprising parts, aims to engage with the site as lightly as possible. MRTN Architects draws on early examples of cave-like forms to carve the resulting home that delicately follows the lines of the site.
As a combined effort, Mt Eliza House is built by PHD Building together with joinery by McGee Projects and shares a crafted approach both internally and externally. An appreciation for detailed junctions and how differing elements meet and intercept is expressed throughout, further heightening an engagement with the home. With a love of both the mid-century era and a Scandinavian pared-back approach, the owners wanted to instil an open connection with the landscape as a key feature of the home, with large openings and curated vistas framed as one navigates throughout. Being able to open up areas and freely move between inside and out was integral and acts as a reminder of the removed and unique location.
Connected to both the beach and the bush, the front portion of the home sits on the gently sloping site, looking to the east and northern views, out toward both the city and to Port Phillip Bay. The level changes are expressed through blockwork internally, where blade walls extend from the inside out past the façade to create and direct the eye toward specific aspects. Entered from an elevated position, the home then follows the fall of the site, opening up and out, as concrete block walls and polished concrete underfoot guide the way while natural and textural timber insertions add a level of welcomed refinement.
MRTN Architects beautifully combines a known residential vernacular with the low maintenance heft required of its location, allowing the focus to remain on the home as a removed retreat for its owners.
