A Study of Restraint – Barn House by Garth Architecture

Just outside of Ballarat, Victoria, lies a small piece of green acreage home to Garth Architecture’s Barn House. An ode to contemporary country living, Barn House provides a study of restraint, demonstrating how a minimal approach to form, proportion and materiality can offer a blank canvas of potential.

Though typically used to house animals or farm equipment, the agricultural architecture of barns offers the perfect shell for rural dwelling. Anita Garth of Garth Architecture utilised the uncomplicated geometry of this iconographic structure to conceive the Barn House, designed not to compete for attention with the bucolic charm of its surroundings but to effortlessly sit within it.

Though typically used to house animals or farm equipment, the agricultural architecture of barns offers the perfect shell for rural dwelling.

Located on a small site with little privacy from the nearby roads and little protection from the prevailing cold southerly winds, Barn House is disguised by a façade clad in sugar gum sourced from local plantations. The façade’s traditional modesty may lead passersby to expect more barn than house, but scattered across the side and north-facing elevations are full-height western red cedar windows that connect the home to the surrounding landscape.

While providing access to private views and enabling long and light-filled sightlines, the windows also carry an important motif of Garth Architecture’s considered and minimal approach. The sun paints the walls of almost empty rooms – the light and shadows moving across the spaces, following the time of day and season. The interior is deliberate in its simplicity in order to emphasise this sensory experience.

The sun paints the walls of almost empty rooms – the light and shadows moving across the spaces, following the time of day and season. The interior is deliberate in its simplicity in order to emphasise this sensory experience.

The deliberate simplicity is also ascribed to the project’s intention to grow alongside the growing family who resides there. The existing open plan living area will become a master suite and a much larger open plan living space will extend from within the house into the landscape to form an outdoor living area. Barn House will eventually evolve with these new spaces to reinforce the layers of privacy, with the entry and living spaces providing a buffer between the road and the more private zones of the home.

The deliberate simplicity is also ascribed to the project’s intention to grow alongside the growing family who resides there.

Garth Architecture’s spatial considerations are equally applied in sustainability outcomes, with materials and products, where possible, sourced locally and selected solely based on their green credentials. This includes low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) materials to improve air quality within the home, and HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) stormwater piping to reduce and limit the contact of drinking water with PVC. Passive solar design and thermal insulation were used to reduce energy use, and a large tank and filtration system enables almost 100% rainwater use in the home.

Black and grey water, once recycled via the wastewater treatment plant, waters the northern lawn via an underground drip system. And the sugar gum cladding was planned in such meticulous detail that only one small wheelie bin of off-cuts remained at the end of the project – the random timber lengths hand sorted, measured and numbered, then the board layout designed to minimise waste.

Simple is easier said than done, but Garth Architecture has successfully, and sustainably, created an elegant rural abode. Referencing the Victorian agricultural vernacular, it is the rigorous attention to the finer details and the material restraint that ground Barn House in its environment.