Experimentation of Solidity – Backdune House by Peter Stutchbury Architecture

Backdune House sits within the unceded lands of the Garigal people on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Whilst exploring scale and solidity, the building continues Peter Stutchbury Architecture’s decades-long experimentation with the experiential qualities of tent architecture.

The project, which is home to the owners of outdoor lifestyle brand Eco Outdoor and their young family, is a carefully crafted response to context and climate. The building is arranged along a central axis that runs from the office and guest accommodation building on the site’s western edge, creating two distinct front courtyard spaces before slicing through the main volume of the house. The stair to the home’s upper level continues this line through the interior, as does the ground floor kitchen, which reaches out beyond the building envelope to the garden at the rear of the block.

The building is arranged along a central axis that runs from the office and guest accommodation building on the site’s western edge, creating two distinct front courtyard spaces before slicing through the main volume of the house.

To the northern side of the site sits Backdune’s great room, a generously scaled double-height volume that contains the living and dining areas on the ground floor, with a nest-like library space hanging above. Peter clarifies that the intention was not to create a lavishly over-scaled space but, rather, to explore clustering functions. “Although we say it’s an experiment in scale, there’s a bit of liberty in that, in the sense that we made one room of a remarkable scale but within that room there’s also a functional combination like kitchen, living [with] fireplace, library, et cetera, each in their separate areas. So, it’s not scale for scale’s sake.”

On the other side of the house, bedroom, bathing and study spaces have been stacked along its southern edge, generating a set of private terraces that accommodate outdoor bathing on both levels. Whilst the extruded folds and curved corners of Backdune’s roof forms draw the eye upward, the house is anchored by the rich textures and lines of the grey stone and board-marked concrete surfaces that connect the building firmly to site, evoking the sedimentary rock layers of the nearby headland.

Whilst the extruded folds and curved corners of Backdune’s roof forms draw the eye upward, the house is anchored by the rich textures and lines of the grey stone and board-marked concrete surfaces that connect the building firmly to site, evoking the sedimentary rock layers of the nearby headland.

Responding sensitively to the existing configurations of the streetscape, the house pulls back into the site. At the same time, however, Backdune actively challenges the existing forms of the neighbourhood by replacing garage space with a single-storey gatehouse volume. This siting strategy for the home office and guest accommodation brings patterns of occupation and inhabitation to the front of the site, whilst affording an uninterrupted view from the street through to the entrance beyond.

According to Peter, Backdune’s street presence “has a genuine softness” that sets up a careful transition from public space through to the domestic interior without constructing unnecessary levels of opacity. “There’s nothing about privacy, as such,” he says. “Even the gate is an open gate, and you can look through all the way to the front door, so there’s this sort of public mystery about it, as opposed to private exclusion.” Through such a marked departure from the closed-off rhythm of fences and roller doors throughout the neighbourhood, the project broadcasts its clear prioritisation of people and connection. As Peter explains, “there’s no front fence, and it’s a very receptive start to the street, being one-storey and quite low. It doesn’t put the car first; it puts people first.”

Peter notes that this is a crucial part of the practice’s approach to architecture in general. “We open all our buildings, and our clients are happy with that – it’s probably why they came to us in the first place. This building is a very good example of that.”

This powerful gesture at the street’s edge is part of a broader strategy to establish a meaningful and ongoing sense of connection between Backdune House and its broader site context – by questioning degrees of enclosure across all aspects of the project. Peter notes that this is a crucial part of the practice’s approach to architecture in general. “We open all our buildings, and our clients are happy with that – it’s probably why they came to us in the first place. This building is a very good example of that.” At Backdune, with the agreement of supportive clients, edges between rooms, surfaces and interior and exterior spaces have been thoroughly interrogated and, at times, profoundly reimagined to investigate, as Peter suggests, “how a building might tempt you to participate a little bit more, not just with the environment but with the spirituality of a place.”

Following this, the most immediately recognisable strategy for opening up the building – the tall timber doors that flank Backdune’s doubleheight volume – do more than just dissolve the edges of the project. When opened, the western-facing double doors and glazing above reach out to the view of a mountain in the distance, inviting it deep within the space. “When those doors are open,” Peter says, “the mountain actually comes in the room like a borrowed landscape.” The view is supported and gently framed by the curved edges of the ceiling and soffit. Taking inspiration from the “soft lines of the tent”, these curves avoid what Peter calls “the squareness of the box” and prompt the gaze to drift out to the landscape beyond.

Taking inspiration from the “soft lines of the tent”, these curves avoid what Peter calls “the squareness of the box” and prompt the gaze to drift out to the landscape beyond.

Further reinforcing these moments of connection, special care has been taken to connect the interior of the home directly and meaningfully with the existing ground. “The building actually sits on a sand platform, not a sand dune,” Peter explains. “It’s the after dune – the backdune – and it actually slopes down to the main waterway of the peninsula, which has been concreted over and all sorts of stuff. So, an important idea here was that the physical ground floor should be connected to the outside; there is basically no step between the two.” He notes that this fundamentally changes one’s experience of inhabiting the house. “I believe that this becomes part of your psyche of being on the land, as opposed to raising the floor up 600 millimetres above the ground, which is cheaper, and running around on platforms. Platform is sky and terrace is ground, in very basic terms. When you’re wanting to be on the ground, a terrace is a lot more appropriate.”

Backdune’s tempting edges and relationship to earth and environment continue to inform the qualities of the single-storey bedroom and bathroom spaces as well. Importantly, Peter understands these “radical thoughts about the level of exposure of the building” as relating “not to physical exposure but, rather, emotional exposure to place. The bathroom has its own terrace and tree, and if you study the plan, you’ll see it’s not just a bathroom, it’s actually an environment you can enjoy, a place you can go and spend an hour or two there and read there. So, it’s set up as a place of occupation.”

As with so many projects by Peter Stutchbury Architecture, in creating opportunities for reconnecting with qualities of site and place, Backdune exhibits a sense of timelessness – something consciously fostered by Peter and his practice.

One is, as Peter puts it, continually “called to the edge of the building.” These edges form a distinct environment within which to linger, for no other reason than to be in conversation with the elemental and spiritual dimensions of the site and its broader context. As with so many projects by Peter Stutchbury Architecture, in creating opportunities for reconnecting with qualities of site and place, Backdune exhibits a sense of timelessness – something consciously fostered by Peter and his practice. With a focus on reconnecting to fundamental environmental conditions and deeper histories of the landscape within which it sits, the house turns its attention to a much longer view of time and memory. As he says, “you’re again walking in a place that is a memory of time and a memory of the old place now. Because that memory is a lot more powerful than the memory that new place forms. It has far more depth and far more storytelling to it.”

Importantly, Peter observes that a turn towards the understandings of Traditional Owners and knowledge holders is needed in order to facilitate a true awareness of context and reverence for place. “Indigenous Australians have maintained their connection to land for a really hard period, 200 years of a tough period, but they have maintained this connection because it’s strong,” he says. “If it was weak, it would have broken by now, but it’s not weak; it’s strong. We need to nurture that in our community, and [if we did] suddenly, you’d find that the whole thrust of architecture [would] change.”

This building also offers smaller expressions of timelessness, such as the adaptability of bedroom, study and office spaces as the project strives, using the concept of tent architecture, to evolve with needs of the clients over time.

This building also offers smaller expressions of timelessness, such as the adaptability of bedroom, study and office spaces as the project strives, using the concept of tent architecture, to evolve with needs of the clients over time. “One might contend,” Peter reflects, “that this is a very expensive way of looking at the problem. Well, perhaps, but the outcome is a very flexible environment designed to accommodate a family – and a rotational family, so the next generation of the family and all that – for as long as they want to stay there, as opposed to houses that are constantly being modified and changed to accommodate changing needs and changing requirements.”

It is generally not easy or straightforward to challenge familiar traditions and tendencies when it comes to the design of dwellings, even when they may no longer be compatible with the way we wish to live. Peter reflects that “it’s very easy to make a building represent its time. Most people do that. Lots of architecture does that. It doesn’t explore or challenge or contemplate what time might be in the future or the advantages of time in the past.” Architecture has the capacity, arguably also the obligation, to productively push beyond inherited ideas. Working with clients who were willing to explore alternatives, in Backdune, Peter Stutchbury Architecture has taken up this challenge.