Whitebridge Garden House

by Anthrosite

Our brief for Whitebridge Garden House was to design a four bedroom home for a young family with a garden room as the heart of the house. All rooms were to have a strong connection with the landscape; The garden room was required to provide a protected territory though which the kitchen and communal spaces could relate to the native bushland and ocean glimpses beyond. Adult and children’s sleeping areas were to be in different zones and a clear sense of arrival/entry was required for visitor navigation. The family friendly interior spaces were designed to be as durable and resilient as the maintenance free exterior. These areas were developed using polished concrete floors and flush skirtings in high traffic zones as an attempt to exchange time spent cleaning up after the kids to time spend being with the kids. The site is situated within an atypical suburban condition. The street frontage to the western boundary addresses an arterial road for headland communities which generates a level of noise disturbance. To the east is a state conservation area bordering a secluded beach both tranquil and exposed to coastal weather in turn. Our client, who had resided on the site for some time and grown up only a stones throw away, wished for a home that sheltered from the western condition and opened to the eastern light and vegetation with safe play area for young children in view of the kitchen. The diagram of a building cradling it’s garden room soon emerged and a layered relationship of inclusion and exclusion developed to buffer the western condition. Parents spaces occupy the southeast and are bound to the children’s spaces to the northwest by a set of interlacing communal spaces that all show deference to the main garden room. The terrain of the site informed the building setout and design.

The building follows the existing ground levels, stepping gently down for a seamless flow of internal to external spaces. Slight level changes in the section illustrate the houses position on a subtle ridge, gently falling in two directions. The level change provides definition to key living areas whilst maintaining their continuity. The simple move of having floor levels following contours allowed for the retention of several valued mature trees. The site’s bushland setting came with some constraints including no mains sewer and bushfire requirements grading from BAL 40 to BAL12.5 across the site. Addressing these constraints early in the design allowed for integration of waste water management to play a role in landscape irrigation and discrete rainwater storage; Bushfire Attack Level (BAL-40) requirements were minimised as the back of house spaces were used to shield living spaces and a detailed interrogation of regulatory controls lead to informed material choices and design details. An economic hierarchy underpins the design allowing for balance between cost and quality to be achieved. The primary investment has been made in areas and items which impact the users most on a daily basis, making it a house that needs to be felt to really be known. Hydronically heated concrete slabs with good solar exposure assist in barefoot comfort year round; tactile timber elements soften and humanise, stone elements offer texture and the built form leaves a feeling of always being open but never exposed.