More With Less – arca.house by Hogg & Lamb

Nestled between headlands in a coastal subdivision south of Byron Bay, arca.house by Hogg & Lamb responds to the natural context of its surroundings. Designed within the Greenfield Housing Code, the new home speaks to its subtropical setting by emphasising outdoor living spaces to allow a private sanctuary for the family who reside there.

The communities that comprise the Northern Rivers of New South Wales have experienced a significant surge in population in the last decade. With national parks flowing into a sea that laps at world-class beaches, it is easy to understand why. Towns such as Skennars Head, where arca.house is located, are close enough to the amenity of international airports but far enough from the everyday bustle of metropolitan life. The pace of living in Skennars Head is closer to the speed of the town’s preferred form of transportation – the bicycle.

In a region known for its notoriously high construction prices, arca.house reduces both expenditure and environmental impact through its emphasis on outdoor living and multi-use spaces designed for family life.

arca.house makes itself immediately known from the street. Although a significant motif throughout the home is its intention to create privacy, the opposite occurs at the entry where a ‘street tower’ acts as a place to survey and interact with neighbours and passers-by. In many instances, an entry marker such as this would be read as an ill-considered grand gesture. But in the case of arca.house, the double-height entry marker is a material and geometric connection to other elements within the home.

arca.house presents a reimagined approach to living in coastal sub-divisions. Unlike many of the neighbours in this community, this four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom home prioritises outdoor space over a maximum gross floor area. This is achieved through Hogg & Lamb’s belief that it makes financial, climatic and functional sense to give external spaces as much importance as the interior. “Often ‘home’ is associated with being indoors, a refuge from the setting it is located in,” says Partner Michael Hogg. “Here, we tried to make the home an extension of the broader landscape, particularly in the way that outdoor living is the focus.”

The configuration of the floor plan fulfils the needs of the growing family with opportunities for both togetherness and moments of personal retreat.

The Greenfield Housing Code requires 24 square metres of compliant principal private outdoor space. arca.house provides 175 square metres,700 per cent of what was required. The total gross floor area to site ratio of arca.house is a mere 35 per cent, with the predominant use of land comprising a series of courtyards, gardens and covered outdoor spaces. Rather than occupying the entire site, Hogg & Lamb conceived arca.house to maximise functionality and lifestyle through these outdoor living spaces, both under cover – in the shade or out of the rain – and under the open sky– in the sun or under the stars. “Northern New South Wales is renowned for a largely outdoors lifestyle. And at arca.house, many of these outdoor activities can be done at home. Swimming, sunbaking, playing, cooking, eating and just lounging around are all accommodated for outdoors,” Michael comments.

A number of separate buildings, roofs and privacy elements with street setbacks that range anywhere from three to 22 metres, as well as side setbacks that range from one to eight metres, ensure arca.house has an abundance of privacy from neighbours and abides by the desired passive design principles of solar access and cross-ventilation. These various elements also orient the family dynamics, from individual health and fitness to group activities and social gatherings.

arca.house presents a reimagined approach to living in coastal sub-divisions.

The configuration of the floor plan fulfils the needs of the growing family with opportunities for both togetherness and moments of personal retreat. The central courtyard, the home’s nucleus, facilitates this. “From a planning perspective,” Michael notes, “the central lawn area, open to the sky and private from the neighbours, is the centre around which the ac-tivities of daily life take place.” The generous lawn area is the conduit toa diverse offering of exterior spaces that are connected to interior rooms. From covered outdoor terraces and a swimming pool to the bordering kitchen and dining rooms, all are connected to the courtyard by a few footsteps. “When traversing the site, you are always moving from indoors to outdoors, from single-height spaces to double-height spaces, from hard surfaces to soft landscape.

Because Hogg & Lamb’s ambition was to reduce the gross floor area, several consolidations were made to the design in order to maximise the spatial volume. For example, the master bedroom follows a resort-style layout whilst the children’s rooms share a bathroom divided into alcoves for multiple users. To further reduce floor space, the fourth bedroom and family room were combined to create a self-contained studio apartment above the garage. This combination gives the feeling of a private guesthouse whilst offering versatile living and visitation arrangements now and well into the future, without the need for additional renovations.

The total gross floor area to site ratio of arca.house is a mere 35 per cent, with the predominant use of land comprising a series of courtyards, gardens and covered outdoor spaces.

arca.house made use of the client’s experienced career as a civil engineer, accompanied by his firm’s in-house structural engineers, to devise a structure with affordability and efficiency in mind. The aim was to minimise the building’s footprint with a combination of construction methods and low-cost materials that were implemented across the compact design with a reduced number of cantilevers. In addition to solar power, rainwater collection and ventilation, the exposed concrete floor provides mate-rial benefits that include thermal mass and by minimising the need for additional finishes.

In a region known for its notoriously high construction prices, arca.house reduces both expenditure and environmental impact through its emphasis on outdoor living and multi-use spaces designed for family life. Hogg &Lamb has reimagined a typical four-bedroom home, offering the region a model for developing greenfield sites within new housing subdivisions. Embracing both a minimal aesthetic and compact floor plan centred around a courtyard brimming with special moments of light and shade, arca.house does more with less.