Sweetwater House by Christopher Botterill and Jackson Clements Burrows Architects

By Narringalling (Sweetwater Creek) on Bunurong Country in Victoria’s Frankston South sits a low-cost, multigenerational, sustainable home designed and built during Melbourne’s extended Covid lockdowns. Sweetwater House belongs to Christopher Botterill – principal architect at Jackson Clement Burrows Architects – and is a materially honest and flexible residence for a growing family.

Frankston South is a leafy suburb 40 kilometres south-east of Melbourne’s CBD. Here, Christopher Botterill, alongside his practice, created a personal and ecological response to the site defined by respite and renewal. The layout of the home is adaptable with spatial arrangements, allowing for different zones of living, as well as separation. Parent and children’s bedrooms occupy opposite ends of the house, while a series of one-, two- and four-metre zones encourage different modes of occupation suitable for teenagers, parents and guests. The heart of the home, however, is the open-plan living and kitchen area that overlooks the nearby creek and a small orchard. Large doors open over a generously sized deck to maximise the integration with nature, with the area perfectly suited for entertainment that may spill forth onto the lawn.

Large doors open over a generously sized deck to maximise the integration with nature, with the area perfectly suited for entertainment that may spill forth onto the lawn.

Sweetwater House’s material palette is tactile and pared back. The timber interior bears an enduring quality while providing a warm experience that reflects the surrounding ferns and eucalypts. The visual weight of the timber is offset by a fine application of porcelain tiles and stainless-steel accents, while four different shades of green laminate surfaces speak to the bushland beyond the home’s large windows.

The project involved a lot of hands-on processes throughout design and delivery to ensure sustainability. This included close collaboration with a specialist mass timber engineer. The home makes use of Jackson Clements Burrows Architects’ experience in mass-timber projects and uses a prefabricated construction methodology that offers time and cost-effectiveness, as well as vertical supply chain security. Sweetwater House is constructed from sustainable softwood sourced from plantations in southern New South Wales. Manufactured by XLam Australia, the cross-laminated timber is certified Red List Free, meaning it is not only free of adhesive polyurethane formaldehyde but is also 100 per cent recyclable at the end of life.

The timber interior bears an enduring quality while providing a warm experience that reflects the surrounding ferns and eucalypts.

The project’s sustainability speculates on the potential future of suburban residential design, going beyond the requirements of the analysis software in terms of solar ingress and shading, cross ventilation, thermal mass and material selection. Sweetwater House takes additional sustainability measures with rainwater harvesting. Utilising the 268 square-metre roof, rainwater is harvested into two 5,000-litre underground tanks. The water feeds all toilets and is available for gravity-fed irrigation to the original orchard and vegetable garden located to the north of the home.

The significant Sweetwater Creek offers an ecology central to the local community. With clear sightlines to this creek, the project remains sensitive to the delicate order of nature. The house has a light ecological footprint and allows a multigenerational housing alternative that elevates the occupants’ everyday lives and encourages the enjoyment of the outdoors from within.

Architecture by Christopher Botterill and Jackson Clements Burrows Architects. Artwork by Ian Strange.