An Enduring Permanence – Couldrey House by Peter Besley and Assemblage

Imagined from a place of enduring permanence, Couldrey House emerges from the subterranean rock it sits upon, challenging the typical Brisbane home vernacular. Peter Besley and Assemblage utilise masonry’s comprising thermal mass to respond to the site’s environmental opportunities and create a boldly confident and restrained home.

Weighted to its site, Couldrey House takes a less traditional approach to the tropical Australian vernacular and proposes a home that instead takes reference directly from its site. Rejecting the lightweight and elevated popular traditional Queenslander typology, the resulting home stands solidly on its footings. Located in the foothills of Mount Coot-tha on a ridge created by granite movement in the Triassic period, a restrained masonry mass emerges from the site. Taking influence from architecture that has prevailed in areas of similar climatic conditions, Peter Besley and Assemblage utilise proven thermal control techniques to propose a passively and appropriately comfortable home.

Built by TM Residential Projects, together with engineering by Projex Partners, Couldrey House sits contentedly as a family home of 320sqm. Drawing from extensive understanding of the buildings in the Middle East and Europe and their connection in scale and grounded-ness to their sites, Peter Besley aimed to instil a respectful compliance between the landscape’s beginnings and its current state. The result is one deeply connected to the land it occupies and one that speaks to an enduring robustness. In exploring materiality, the use of brickwork was imperative, yet opposes the traditional use within the Australian setting (where it is seen as a mass production tool, typically in the suburbs). Instead, referencing the European approach where it is seen as a highly respected and honed craft, there is a sense of the monumental brought to site.

Taking influence from architecture that has prevailed in areas of similar climatic conditions, Peter Besley and Assemblage utilise proven thermal control techniques to propose a passively and appropriately comfortable home.

Designed to generate its own radiant cooling, the spine of this system stems from the 39m-long precast concrete units that recharge at night and cool the spaces during the day. These replace the need for convection cooling and humidity control. Care has also been given to create cross-ventilation through a deliberately permeable floor plan, where the traditional approach has also been flipped. Bedrooms and more passive spaces are tucked in on the lower level, while the convening gathering living spaces are moved to the upper floor to create a sense of living amongst the tree canopies. The comprising materiality acts as an extension of the monumental methodology. The palette is restrained and the way in which all of the elements come together could infer the home as much a public building or gallery space, as its position as a home.

Weighted to its site, Couldrey House takes a less traditional approach to the tropical Australian vernacular and proposes a home that instead takes reference directly from its site.

While affronted with crafted patterned brickwork upon entry, Couldrey House opens to the elements at the side and rear, responding and embracing its site. Peter Besley and Assemblage have intuitively captured elements of the site’s past and reinstated them in the resulting home – one designed to endure well beyond its lightweight neighbours and that presents itself as a welcomed sculpture within the residential setting.

Peter Besley and Assemblage utilise masonry’s comprising thermal mass to respond to the site’s environmental opportunities and create a boldly confident and restrained home.