Villetta Ondulata
Among the patchwork of brick bungalows and fibro shacks in Byron Bay, Villetta Ondulata is quietly disobedient. Designed more than three decades ago by Gina Ghioni, the home translates a frugal ethos into poetry. Today, Laura Muirhead and Peter Tanevski of Tanev Muir Architects continue its story, preserving a dwelling that privileges connection with the landscape over square metres.
Situated on Arakwal Country, the four‑bedroom home is humble in scale yet spatially expressive. Planning operates around the north‑facing garden, which acts as a central living space, connected by radiating timber decks rather than enclosed hallways. This arrangement, now familiar in contemporary Australian design, was far ahead of its time in the early 1990s, a rethinking domestic life to blur lines between inside and out.
Villetta Ondulata embodies an approach where listening to place outweighs material luxury.
Gina Ghioni’s early understanding of the site and its microclimate was borne of experience. Living next door during the conception of the home, her sensitivity to prevailing breezes and seasonal shifts informed a structure that provides shelter without conventional enclosure. Constructed for under $40,000 at the time, Villetta Ondulata embodies an approach where listening to place outweighs material luxury. Every element of the building is anchored in availability and endurance. The vertical frame is formed from repurposed telephone poles, too imperfect for their intended use yet perfect in their tactile honesty. Corrugated micro‑orb cladding, Oregon rafters and sealed MDF flooring complete a palette shaped by practicality rather than indulgence. Ghioni’s decision to lean into the limitations of cost and material scarcity gives the dwelling a warmth difficult to replicate through contemporary procurement.
As the current custodians of the home, Tanev Muir Architects approached stewardship gently, introducing subtle layers to its ongoing story. Lighting has been refined, the garden tended, yet much remains untouched as deliberate act of respect. Their ongoing dialogue with the home continues the narrative of reuse and evolution; ceramics shaped by Muirhead sit beside a dining table made from Tanevski’s family benchtop, furniture from local makers Lex Williams and Verity Nunan introduce a new layer of craft without disrupting the quiet rhythm of the existing home.
Spatially, the A‑frame residence is a physical essay in experimentation and composure as the dwelling oscillates between compression and release. Defying convention, its ‘front door’ does not open into a hallway, but rather directly onto a flourishing internal garden. Lofted rooflines draw the eye upward to seven‑metre peaks, while moments beneath the sloped ceilings become intimate alcoves. In the evening, stained‑glass windows splash colour across the plywood interior. Here, life unfolds between thresholds. Hammocks strung across the outdoor decks become places of pause between architecture and landscape. The air moves freely through each pavilion, reinforcing the original thesis that shelter is not a sealed space but should be responsive to the natural world.
Standing apart from its gentrified surroundings of brick and fibro homes, Villetta Ondulata remains unbothered by fashion. A home whose modest origins reveal one of architecture’s most enduring lesson that sensitivity, not scale, defines comfort. Its spirit, experimental, frugal and deeply attentive to place, continues to tutor its new custodians. In preserving its quirks and continuing its story, Tanev Muir Architects demonstrate their ability to nurture its ongoing life embracing the ethos that progress can sometimes mean restraint.
Architecture, interior design, build and landscape design by Gina Ghioni. Artwork by Verity Nunan.
