Tucked away into its own serene landscaped setting, Grasslands Retreat sits as a private and secluded place of escape. Keshaw McArthur delicately inserts a deceptively simple pavilion into the landscape, its simplicity of form belying its adaptability of function. From this unassuming visage, a place of contemplation and recharge unfurls, heightening a connection between its occupants and nature.
Grasslands Retreat is an assemblage of many guises, capable of adapting to a multitude of functions through its non-prescriptive nature. With the ability to transform into a workplace or residence as required, it is both a place of hustle and one of pause. In its essence, however, it is a place to retreat, breathe and practice. This is informed by the building’s fundamental connection to the landscape. “A fundamental aspect of the brief was to investigate the building’s visual integration into the natural landscape,” explains Katrina Keshaw, Director of Keshaw McArthur. “The beginnings arose through considering the primal relationship to the land – for both building and inhabitants – to maintain and heighten the existing conditions.”
As it sits inserted amidst an almost park-like site, preserving the natural and living elements that it was immersed within was key to its continued narrative. Here, nature is enabled to calm, heal and inspire. “From a very early point, the building became a dialogue with the landscape,” says Katrina, “and by using two of the main local construction methodologies – masonry block and lightweight timber construction – the form explores ideas of burying, floating, screening and hovering.” As a quiet insertion, the form sits respectful of what has come and grown before, allowing the site to absorb the form in its own way over time, facilitating growth and expressing age through weathering.
Echoing a combination of familiar rural and residential forms, the simplicity of the design required a matched attentive rigour to how each of its elements came together. “Although the building has a modest footprint, there was a clear desire for there to be a spatial openness within,” Katrina says. As a result, the interior volumes open generously, making way for vastly lofted, raked ceiling formations to accentuate an internal sense of scale. Throughout, a consistent datum runs around the interior edge, framing the space and directing the eye back out towards the landscape, as a connection to its meditative qualities. There is an inherent calmness created within the building, both on approach as one engages with the landscape and through the encasing materiality. Once inside looking out, a more refined and sculpted sense emerges. As a multi-use space, a level of flexibility was key, while also allowing for the changing functionality to feel deliberately catered for. “Intentionally clean lines and finishing details seek to reduce visual distraction within the spaces,” says Katrina, “an approach that looks to contribute to greater flexibility in the way the spaces can be inhabited.”
As it sits inserted amidst an almost park-like site, preserving the natural and living elements that it was immersed within was key to its continued narrative.
Though the building shares the site with an existing main dwelling, its degree of separation allows one to assume otherwise; aligning instead with the southern edge of the site, it is discreetly disconnected. This is reinforced by the siting, which sees the structure set “within the landscape, much like a pavilion in a domain,” describes Katrina. “The lightweight timber structure sits on, behind and beside the garden wall. This solid masonry wall anchors the intervention in nature – to orientate oneself in the vastness, where the land gently slopes downward towards the north, bordering a public walkway and reserve.” As a result, though Grasslands Retreat is by no means alone in its milieu, it feels intrinsically connected to the land and views, creating a sense that it could easily be occupying a more remote setting. “The placement of particular solid and transparent apertures throughout allows for a seasonal dialogue with the landscape,” Katrina says, “and with the openings exposed, the landscape is intended to flow through the building.”
This acknowledgement of the natural elements plays an integral part in the selection of materiality and the resulting palette used throughout. While timber provides a textural and protective outer shell, the rhythm of the cladding also creates a calming balance to the more organic shapes found in nature. “The structure was planned with a modular set-out, most visible on its exterior, to minimise material wastage,” says Katrina. Although the form feels intentionally catered for, it carefully navigates the terrain below. “The floor plane of the building extends beyond the wall and appears to hover above the sloping site,” she explains. “Having entered the building over the threshold of the garden wall, there is a feeling of being shielded from the public realm, and from this vantage point comes a sense of protection and prospect.” In its nestling into the surrounds and lessening the impact on the site, the space feels even more regenerative. Passive and sustainable mechanisms then continue the story of the space as a light insertion, acknowledging and respecting the natural elements.
Passive and sustainable mechanisms then continue the story of the space as a light insertion, acknowledging and respecting the natural elements.
Disguised and deliberately subdued in the landscape, Grasslands Retreat becomes a sensitive addition to its site, listening and responding intuitively. As an open embrace of many iterations, the structure welcomes its occupants and the changing seasonality of its surrounds, continuously flowing in harmony.
