At Home on the Hillside – N House by Partners Hill

Constructed in 2002, N House has been quietly occupying its Brisbane hillside site for two decades. It is not a heroic building, able to be understood and admired at a single glance. Rather, it is a place that has been exactingly designed to be experienced gradually, whether that be over one visit or in the course of a lifetime’s inhabitation. Timothy Hill describes the project as “a garden with a building at its edges.” Like all gardens, it has taken season after season to mature, so though the building is 20 years old, he considers it to be still only “almost finished”. This unhurried approach is indicative of the central objective underpinning all his work – namely, that it should have the capacity to support a minimum 75 years of continuous use.

Simple though it may be, this is an ambition with significant architectural implications, encompassing not only what and how to build but, more importantly, when and why not to. It is an idea that has preoccupied Timothy and to which he has given rigorous thought over his more than 30-year career to date, beginning with his work with Donovan Hill, the practice he established with Brian Donovan in 1992, and continuing with his current studio, Partners Hill. Six Brisbane projects, constructed between 1999 and 2003 – D House, C House, T2 House, Z House, Terrace Street Apartments and N House – Timothy says are “all really gardens”. These houses, which together form the Carapace Series, represent not so much a de-emphasis of the architectural as simultaneously an expansion of its definition and a scrupulous refinement of its purpose and practise. The term ‘carapace’, being ‘a hard outer shell, a protective or defensive covering’, speaks to the idea that the building is not an object in and of itself but a receptacle. One that, if it is to endure for a century or more, needs to remain not only physically durable but also functionally adaptable and emotionally, intellectually and imaginatively engaging.

Though the long view across the city is an obvious choice to frame and emphasise, Timothy’s interest lies in what will engage a person day after day inhabiting a place.

The legacy of the Carapace houses is, of course, profound, noted among the most esteemed residential architecture of the past 20 years. Across all of these projects, Timothy explains that the underlying imperative is simply “trying to supply something memorable” because, if it is to last for a century or more, “[someone] is going to spend a lot of time there.” To this end, he reflects that “it turns out that making active voids is more memorable than making worshipful objects,” and it is for this reason that the garden has taken such importance in his work. Looking to the many traditions of villa and compound housing for precedent, N House and the other projects in the Carapace Series deploy the landscape very deliberately to cultivate a close, meaningful relationship between the occupants and the site; breaking down the built mass, meticulously sequencing spaces and views, and carefully plotting and shaping circulation become, above all, an exercise in constantly prioritising the garden. “When trying to make a judgement about what would sustain over time, I’ve always put a lot of faith in how the garden would have a relentless charm,” Timothy says.

In N House, this manifests both in the central landscaped space around which the built volumes are strung and the formative role of the hillside into which it is set. One first encounters the house from the road below and must ascend the hill, driving up and around a corner in order to reach the entrance. This circuitous route leads not to a front door but to a forecourt, where a timber gate is set into a rendered wall. Here, rather than being drawn to the building, the eye is led to an opening above, through which treetops and sky can be glimpsed. Sometimes, too, a head may appear within the frame, and only then does it become apparent that this is not just an engaging aperture but a walkway – the first hint of the important role that the promenade has to play.

Looking to the many traditions of villa and compound housing for precedent, N House and the other projects in the Carapace Series deploy the landscape very deliberately to cultivate a close, meaningful relationship between the occupants and the site; breaking down the built mass, meticulously sequencing spaces and views, and carefully plotting and shaping circulation become, above all, an exercise in constantly prioritising the garden.

This arrival experience – approaching the site from below, climbing its gradient, reaching a gate only to have attention drawn not to building but to void – is a prelude that one does not even realise one has begun to take part in. Stepping through the gate to enter an enchanting garden rather than the expected room and then beginning to explore the paths available – scaling stairs, ambling along walkways covered overhead and open to the side, reaching a cul de sac or corner, pausing to rest at one of many proffered comfortable edges, gazing through a window across the garden and again through another aperture to consider the sky, reaching vantage points or hunkering down close into the landscape – only then does it begin to dawn that this is not a static address but rather a carefully articulated part of the hillside that one had already begun to experience the moment the road turned upwards.

Entering the garden from the forecourt, three paths present themselves; straight, down a series of steps and into the garden; right, along a covered promenade by the inner perimeter of the northern wing; or left, up a flight of stairs. “One of the things about putting [the building] out along the edges of the garden and that is very good to see after 20 years is the versatility of the plan,” Timothy says. A prescriptive, overtly residential plan is often inherently limited – for N House to remain relevant and functional over an extended period, a more versatile approach was needed. Ascending the stairs to the left, one finds oneself on the promenade above the gate, which offers independent access to the rooms on the upper level without first going inside. These rooms on the upper terrace could easily operate as bedrooms should the house be required to fulfil the role of home for a large family; they also contribute to its ability to function as something else entirely – a workplace, for instance. Or, presciently, the plan suggests that these autonomous upper rooms might be used as a home office, allowing the inhabitant to enter the gate and turn in one direction to go into the office, turn another way to enter the house, or to avoid the built component entirely and travel down the site through the garden towards the pool.

Peripheral but not insubstantial, it meticulously orchestrates its relationship with the land it occupies.

From the outset, this choice of routes contributes an immediate sense of possibility that seems to expand the site, and with its stairs, walkways and terraces the design reiterates the hillside topography. The effect, then, is a sort of amplification of the terrain that goes hand-in-hand with the denial of the object of the building. As Timothy describes, “with placing a lot of emphasis on the circulation rather than the form […] there is no ‘outside’. You can only ever be on the inboard side of [the building], so it’s impossible to perceive it.” Consequently, the building becomes a constant overarching – ‘carapacial’, as it were – presence, rather than a defined, removed object. Peripheral but not insubstantial, it meticulously orchestrates its relationship with the land it occupies.

None of the buildings in the Carapace Series touch the earth lightly, rather they own their intervention with the landscape and, in so doing, recognise their responsibility towards it, Timothy explains. This is conspicuously unlike a pavilion that hovers above the site and so refuses the primal relationship between human beings and the land. “There’s such a difference between being with and gazing at.” He describes that in the Carapace houses, the gardens are often brought very close to the interiors, and there is also a sense of depth, with precisely calculated openings that encompass the sky and the treetops or emphasise the interpolation of building and landscape. “Whereas, in the culture of gazing, everything is equidistant, and nothing is touched. I think it’s very unsatisfactory to say the landscape is for looking at. This idea that in order to be authentic or natural you should not engage with a landscape, […] that it is made sacred by one’s disengagement and sacrificing oneself from ever having to worry about it, I’m very unsure about.”

The garden at the centre of N House has been carefully tended over the years. Standing at the entry gate, the simple design, with lawn, clipped hedges, narrow ponds, stands of bamboo and a vine that is in the process of engulfing the western wing of the building, feels ordered without being overly formal. Descending into the garden, the path is delineated by the dense hedging to one side and a tall, rendered wall to the other, before reaching a sunken outdoor room at the corner of the site. Here, the garden that one was moments before raised above suddenly surrounds on the northern side, where an opening in the brick wall beside a fireplace intimately frames the understory of the garden bed adjacent. Light grazes down the wall from above, heightening the effect. By contrast, the other side of this room is entirely open to the pool, the trees and the sky with the cityscape beyond.

At this moment, one is diagonally opposite the entry to the living spaces. To get there, the choice is offered to walk beneath the covered timber walkway beside the pool or retrace the steps up to the gate before proceeding along the promenade sheltered from above by the upper terrace. Eventually, a large door is reached. Heralded by a small light suspended over the threshold, which contrasts playfully with an enormous lamp immediately nearby that illuminates the garden, this entrance presents and functions as a traditional front door despite being almost as far as possible from the initial point of arrival. Moving through the door, another series of steps ascends to a north-facing window. To the right, the main living space is spread across two levels, the floor climbing up and changing to timber just as the rich timber ceiling lining folds down, creating a subtle, comforting sense of being held despite the double-height volume and wall of glass facing the garden. To the left of the entry there is the option to proceed upstairs or down – “very hillside,” says Timothy, “remember, you’ve just come downstairs” – to the kitchen and then through to a space that is neither entirely inside nor out.

The garden at the centre of N House has been carefully tended over the years.

The inner perimeter wall is cranked here like the crook of an arm, its lightweight timber structure aligning with the adjoining promenade canopy while contrasting with the concrete walls that enfold the remaining two sides. Two apertures have been carved out from the concrete, one atop the other in a double opening. Though the long view across the city is an obvious choice to frame and emphasise, Timothy’s interest lies in what will engage a person day after day inhabiting a place. While a visitor or real estate buyer is drawn to the view, a person spending a long time in a place intuitively looks to the sky and their immediate surrounds – the garden – for reference. “I’ve often pondered that when I’ve made double windows, one to the garden and one to the sky, or one to the view and one to the sky. It’s interesting when you spend enough time with it, because as a person you’re endlessly referencing the sky as it’s heralding changes. ‘Is a storm coming? Will it be dark soon? Is the sun up?’,” Timothy reflects.

Every space, down to the smallest room, is attuned to this instinctive impulse – not necessarily always satisfying it but equally, in the case of the more private quarters particularly, somewhat guarding against it to create a greater sense of ease and comfort. “When rooms are slightly tucked away from the edge it makes them very comfortable,” Timothy explains. The most significant example is the main bedroom, which sits above the indoor-outdoor room with its double window. At the southeast corner, the wall of the bedroom is glazed, creating a timber-framed window seat detailed to recall the timber wall and seat below. Aligning with the upper opening of the double window beyond, this glazed wall results in a layered transparency that draws attention to the protective quality of the building’s shell while also allowing visual connection with the sky and view in the distance. Similarly, in the ensuite, the window is not in the room itself but across the hall. Double doors create an enlarged opening with a line of sight over the hall to the window, where the garden may be seen at a slight remove.

Moving down the hall, it becomes clear that it is not only an important circulation space but also a source of light for the other multipurpose rooms on the upper level. These rooms, several of which currently function as bedrooms, are relatively small while the hall is wide. The hall is lit from above by a series of skylights that directly correlate with the glazed doors to the small rooms. These doors of opaque glass allow the natural light from the hall to enter the space so that it is luminous on two sides. “I’m always keen in these bigger houses to make sure that the ordinary rooms are really lovely, because [otherwise] what happens is you end up with a few really nice rooms and then you get all the bad rooms out the back that are really one-sided,” Timothy says. “In this house, as in all of the Carapace houses, they’ve all got light on two sides and often three.”

Continuing along the passage, one reaches a landing that acts as a larger shared multipurpose space. Unlike the smaller rooms on the upper level, it is open – the only open-plan space in the whole house. Yet it conveys a similar affinity for diffuse light and controlled transparency. This space is set above and to one side of the enormous double-height window on the north that faces the main entrance on the lower level. As such, light infuses from both this side and the hall window on the south. Being an open-plan space that is an intermediary between upstairs and downstairs, glimpses of openings in other rooms both above and below offer a layered illumination that is all the more intriguing for being indirect.

Having circumnavigated the entire site and come to rest at this nexus of the two wings of the building – without a clear line of sight out, perhaps the most interior of spaces – one might reflect on how there is no real distinction between the interiors and the architecture.

Having circumnavigated the entire site and come to rest at this nexus of the two wings of the building – without a clear line of sight out, perhaps the most interior of spaces – one might reflect on how there is no real distinction between the interiors and the architecture. “It’s taking the architecture to an interior point,” Timothy says. “The best thing I can do for interiors is give them gentle light.” There are almost no applied finishes. The robust and limited material palette of concrete, travertine, rendered blockwork and timber prevails throughout, and even the tiles that represent the only colour are glass and so have an intrinsic, not superficial, hue. There are also virtually no products and very little joinery. All the doors, windows, light fittings and handles are bespoke, while storage is integrated or performs some other function, such as shelving in the kitchen that is also a light source.

With utility inherent to the architecture, there is a fundamental integrity that lends a freeing simplicity. Timothy likens N House to “an old Italian building. It just exists, and you work out how to use to it.” That use will change over the years. For the past two decades, it has been a private home. What it may become, time will tell. The passing of time has a way of impacting architecture, and old buildings take on an ambience that is hard to quantify. But time is not so linear here. From day one, N House – with its weighty mass cut into to create multiple openings, step downs and turrets – has had something of this atmosphere of a ruin in the landscape, only enhanced now that the plants have grown. Revisiting the house now, with the garden finally reaching maturity, Timothy says, “is strange, like seeing a memory of what one had imagined.”

Under such circumstances, in such a place as this, retrospection becomes a somewhat blurry activity. Lulled by a sense of the architecture’s permanence and engaged by the garden’s continual presence, it is difficult to define how what went before may influence what is to come. All that seems to matter is that here, now, every activity of daily life is held and somehow even anticipated. Materially a product of its time but experientially entirely contemporaneous, given half a century or more, this garden with a building at its edges will still be here, steadfast in its position in the hillside.