The earth-filled concrete plates of Bunkeren are balanced carefully on a coastal site within the unceded lands of the Awabakal people in Whitebridge, a southern suburb of Newcastle. The project is an incredibly photogenic study in concrete textures and form, containing subtle nods to the kinds of architectural references one might expect from a collaboration between experienced architect James Stockwell and Danish-Australian clients with an eye for design. Yet the building is far more than just finely crafted details and dramatic concrete cantilevers. At its heart, Bunkeren attempts to actively dismantle the object qualities of the architecture in favour of ambiguous, landscape-driven spaces of discovery and inhabitation.

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.

Sculpted by the constraints of its tight, inner-suburban site in Melbourne’s Windsor, Eastbourne is an introspective home that skilfully balances privacy and connection. Eastop Architects eschews typical notions of domestic space in favour of hybridised atmospheres for living, offering a reposeful home of unexpected scale and amenity.

For Olive Cooke and Henry Tervenski, designing and building their own home felt entirely natural. Olive’s keen eye for design and Henry’s role as Director of Morada Build proved a fitting and essential starting point. Armed with the help of Davis Architects and a readiness to call somewhere special home, the pair embarked on their second project together last year, Currawong House in Ewingsdale.

As it stands today, The Fisher House is the work of several creative minds spanning half a century. Originally designed and built by Alistair Knox in 1969, it is now home to creative couple Sean Fennessy, photographer, and art director Jess Lillico. Together with architect Adriana Hanna, Sean and Jess have amplified the experience of this modernist home, creating a mindful place with an enduring authenticity, guided by the original architectural intent.

A substantial reworking of an Edwardian residence, Armadale House by Selzer Design Studio brings a light and airy quality to the experience of home, drawing views to the neighbouring parkland inwards. Layered, timeless materials animate the contemporary forms, while spaces work hard to maximise the potential of the compact site.

For many, the journey to finding and creating the perfect home is a process of dedicated refinement – a metaphorical scoring beneath non-negotiable elements and an illumination of hidden expectations, true priorities and the intrinsic patterns of liveability. Malvern House by Lande Architects has emerged from a process informed by these sentiments and the crystal ball presentiment that allows the beauty in heritage homes to be filtered into a design language that teeters at the apex of tradition and innovation.

As an interplay between light and shadow, a textural rippling facade creates a robust and protective veil for the slight interior of the efficiently planned Concealed Refuge. Architects and husband-and-wife team Oli Booth and Libby Elmore channel ideas of retreat and seclusion to sculpt their highly detailed haven.

Tasmania’s landscape is instilled with a raw and powerful intensity that seeps into the very fabric of life in Australia’s most eastern state. The purity and elemental strength of the environment has inspired an architectural movement defined by robust materials, an amplification of nature and the beauty that can be found in juxtaposition. Tanner Architects harnesses these qualities with The Point, a pavilion that encapsulates a physical and emotional experience of place.

Strong and contemporary in form, Cove House by Alwill simultaneously embraces its exposed harbourside locale and bunkers down to form a private family home. A successful overlay of site parameters and client brief results in a delicately crafted residence designed to patina with dignity.

As an open embrace of its setting on a street lined with heritage-listed period and modernist gems, Seymour Road is inserted as a respectful addition to its neighbourhood. In crafting her own home, Lani Fixler has created a place that is at once private and personal while also engaging in an open conversation with the streetscape.

The natural environment has long been channelled by architects and designers, its calming qualities and restful earthiness often emulated through materiality and form. The Penthouse at Thirty Anderson, designed by Rob Mills Architecture & Interiors with furniture and styling by Collective, draws on nature’s unrivalled tranquillity, resulting in a luxurious residence that explores kinship through design.

Conceived as a large deck beneath a canopy of eucalypts, Jan Juc Studio is marked by its simplicity of form and clarity of intent. Veiled with operable, permeable timber screens that admit sea breezes, the muted roar of the ocean beyond the hills and shifting dappled light while sheltering the spaces within, the building is alive to the elemental qualities of the site. At once restrained and responsive, the home of Eldridge Anderson Architects Co-Director Jeremy Anderson sees the influence of the personal coalesce with the practice’s primary architectural interests.

Inala Apartment by Brad Swartz Architects has emerged via a deep inquiry into the practice of apartment living and the prescience that can be indulged when architects shape their own homes. Through creative and critical thinking, the spatially confined space is transformed into a home of innate capability.

Combining the essence of the nearby ocean and the characteristic grandeur of the existing home, Espie Residence balances soft and calming hues with a playful and immersive approach. Georgina Jeffries instils the home with a sense of quiet and honours its unique history through a careful attention to detail.