Demanding Robustness – Mt Macedon House by Field Office Architecture

A narrow linear form, Mt Macedon House sits along the side of Mt Macedon in Victoria, nestled into the surrounding bushland. Field Office Architecture has applied a sense of robust materiality to suit the site’s demanding context.

Set within an area subject to bushfire protection regulations, Mt Macedon House needed to comply first and foremost with a challenging and pragmatic brief, both despite and because of the incredible site location. Designing around and within the regulations of Australian bushfire prone areas can be extremely limiting with regard to the resulting materiality, form and overall design freedom, and this was no exception. In response to these conditions, a more simplified approach was taken, and Field Office Architects instead adopted one more attuned to a robust and masculine front to the elements. Due to its scale and length, the resulting home shows an expression of strength, resilience and combined determination.

At 200 square metres, Mt Macedon House sits length-ways along a significantly falling site. As a means to abate such a fall, one side of the volume abuts the land, where a clearing allows for access. From this point, the home optimises its location (and the subsequent site conditions) to perch out over the surrounding views and lush bush vegetation. Although the clearing both gives access to and provides protection from the bushland, it was priority for the client that said clearing be kept to the required minimum to fully immerse the structure into the existing landscape.

Mt Macedon House needed to comply first and foremost with a challenging and pragmatic brief, both despite and because of the incredible site location.

Field Office Architecture custom designed Corten steel cladding to provide the required protection as bushfire screening to glazed elements. The exterior is designed to be operable, able to be opened and closed as needed, revealing the interiors from outside, and openly inviting the exterior inward. The rooftop desk then sits atop the structure, engulfing the 360-degree views of its surroundings. Passive study and sleeping areas are hidden behind these large sheets of protecting steel and located at the rear of the home. The more active and connected spaces for living, entertaining and meal preparation, however, are at the more open and transparent end, reflecting their functionality through materiality and palette application.

Mt Macedon is a home that responds to its demanding site, and contrastingly allows for an immersion within it. Field Office Architecture has played with contrast, cleverly responding to the landscape through working alongside it.