A Conduit to Nature – Bay Guarella by Peter Stutchbury

An operable structure that deeply engages with its context, Bay Guarella is a humble home offering shelter and respite amongst its forest surrounds. Peter Stutchbury Architecture combines a rhythmic approach with robust materiality to create a built conduit to the nature the home is immersed within.

Nestled into its remote coastal surrounds and suitably named after its location, Bay Guarella occupies a secluded site. It’s positioning sees its immersion within an existing forest and the resulting form and rhythm of the home’s comprising parts acts a nod to the repeated vertical nature of the surrounding bush landscape. The unique forest’s weathered vegetation stands permanently at an angle, shaped by the strong coastal winds. The resulting home speaks to its humble nature as a place of appropriate shelter and retreat. Deliberately operable elements allow a fully connected engagement with the site, with naturally flowing ventilation, thermal control and access to curated sunlight throughout. With a suitable robustness of palette, Peter Stutchbury Architecture, led by project architect Ava Shirley, imbues the structure with its own sense of place.

Nestled into its remote coastal surrounds and suitably named after its location, Bay Guarella occupies a secluded site.

The creation of a sense of intimacy in each of the spaces is expressed through scale, acting as a reminder of its placement within its landscape. While entire façade elements are intentionally operable, a more passive stance is also able to be embraced. High level clerestory glazing allows for natural and indirect lighting internally, allowing heat loads to escape upward, while their placement also acts as a connection to the tree canopies above. Offering subtle contrasts, the external cladding and structure respond to the forest in their own way, contrasting the internals. The interior condition then offers a softer setting, encouraging comfort through a sense of protection and embrace and through the home’s ability to close in on itself.

While there are deliberate familiar references to the occasional holiday cottage, there are other more lofted expressions of space through extended heights and connected contemporary living spaces. On the lower level, a more passive resting room is created, allowing multiple occupants to reside in the same space, while on the upper level there is an intentional calm created in the separation in function. The main bedroom occupies its own space, offering a geographical seclusion, while the larger central room sits at the centre and houses the fireplace as a gathering cue. The connection to craft and simplified detail is expressed throughout, with a sense of honesty in its construction. The home’s compilation of a robust and enduring materiality is both suited to its location and matching in palette to the naturally occurring colours surrounding.

It’s positioning sees its immersion within an existing forest and the resulting form and rhythm of the home’s comprising parts acts a nod to the repeated vertical nature of the surrounding bush landscape.

Bay Guarella is both responsive and sensitive, proposing a place of shelter befitting of its context. Peter Stutchbury and Ava Shirley have brought a unique energy to the site, allowing the home to live harmoniously and offering a balance between the built and the natural.