Simple, Precise Shelter – Jan Juc Studio by Eldridge Anderson Architects

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.

A tree is perhaps the simplest form of shelter. During the five years Jeremy and his partner Claire spent living in the brick house that formerly occupied the site in Jan Juc – a coastal town on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road – their affinity for their new home came not from the small, run-down house but from the joy of spending time beneath the mature eucalypt trees. Though the site is of suburban proportions, the vegetation establishes it within a rural milieu rather than the urban sprawl burgeoning along this part of the coast. “We found that the aspect we enjoyed the most was sitting in the backyard under the gum tree, with the north sun [shining] throughout the day and the sense of shelter the trees provided whilst enjoying the cool sea breezes,” Jeremy recalls. “In a broad sense, we wanted to design a house that allowed us to achieve that feeling throughout the year, and so the house can be traced back to this idea of a large deck below the gum trees.”

During the five years Jeremy and his partner Claire spent living in the brick house that formerly occupied the site in Jan Juc – a coastal town on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road – their affinity for their new home came not from the small, run-down house but from the joy of spending time beneath the mature eucalypt trees.

The simplicity of this experience is felt poignantly in the radically open plan, which evokes a sense of living on a platform in the bush. As a place Jeremy and Claire intend to stay for a long time, “it was important the home could accommodate [the two of us] now, but also a family and changing lifestyle in the future,” he says. Reflecting Eldridge Anderson’s understanding that “a house is a container for all the acts of living and family life,” there are no rooms in the typical sense of four walls and a door. Rather, the home is experienced as a single space that can be separated into zones as needed, with function interpreted according to the task at hand. Both indoor and outdoor spaces are non-prescriptive, creating a building that is intrinsically flexible to support many different modes of occupation.

In the absence of a traditional plan, a central core provides privacy and utility while allowing movement to circulate freely around the periphery. This represents the continual evolution of Eldridge Anderson’s previous work. Co-Director Scott Eldridge explains that “a lot of our projects have a sense of front and back, not from a conventional approach about facing the street but more so toward orientation, view, light.” Designing Jeremy’s own home provided both architects with the opportunity to explore how a condensed core located centrally, rather than along a side or back, could be used to provide a sense of graduation from public to private, with the front door to one side and the bathroom the other, sleeping quarters to the south and living to the north. Less obviously but equally significantly, the core is also an important counterpoint to the profound openness of the building – both internally and at its unusually permeable edges, defined only by operable glazing and the batten screens. “As the house is open around the perimeter, the core provides a sense of protection to sit against whilst observing the landscape,” Jeremy reflects.

Simultaneously surface and aperture, the screens are both functional and gestural. Far more than a supplementary appendage, they are essential to mediating the dynamic between light, air, space and mass that is the architecture’s primary concern.

This deep connection with the environment – embedded during the many hours spent outdoors in the backyard – was refined and shaped by Jeremy and Claire’s travels through Japan in the early stages of the design process. “Contemplating the plan and relationship to site whilst in the courtyard of the Kennin-ji temple in Kyoto encouraged awareness of the subtleties of light changing throughout the day, vegetation through the screens and shadows on the backdrop of surfaces,” Jeremy says. “So, this idea of capturing a feeling of a building that was connected to its surroundings became a driving force.” The screened façade represents a simple yet beautifully detailed response to this end. Simultaneously
surface and aperture, the screens are both functional and gestural. Far more than a supplementary appendage, they are essential to mediating the dynamic between light, air, space and mass that is the architecture’s primary concern.

In the tradition of Richard Leplastrier and Glenn Murcutt, a direct engagement between the building and its inhabitants is encouraged through these screens that lend dimensionality to the fa ade and the interior alike. Initially, with no visible openings when the screens are drawn, the home sits as a defined, ostensibly simple volume beneath its delicate gable roof. This quiet, reserved timber face – which will continue to grey over time – becomes something of a backdrop to the vegetation and a surface on which light and shadow play. Yet, as the screens are activated according to the season and time of day, transparency and animation are introduced, allowing the richer finish of the main timber structure and lining to become evident and light to gently radiate forth at night. It is an understated yet fundamental expression that is a conscious contrast with the prevailing tendencies of Australia’s coastal
architecture. “Many of the houses along the coast feel over dramatised, with dramatic gestures or many shapes working to do simple things,” Jeremy reflects. “So for us,” Scott adds, “this is a subtle articulation, screens partially opened at different days or times of the year, changing shadows, subtle signs of occupation and quiet adjustment along the streetscape.”

With this external appearance of consistency and order, “from the inside, the sense of enclosure, solid versus open, private versus communal and of the subtle operation of the screens and doors with relation to the site, sun and breezes becomes clearly apparent,” Scott describes. The feeling of the spaces is shaped according to the way light is permitted, reflected, filtered or excluded through the screens. The emphasis on the control of light heightens the experience of inhabitation. As one moves through the darkened, enclosed stair, the contrast emerging in the lighter and airier upper level is profound. Equally, the subtlety of the infinite permutations of dappled light and shadow speaks to the benefits of a more precise approach to light than, perhaps, the typical brief for light-filled spaces would recognise. “It’s a powerful gesture that is even more dramatic and varied than we anticipated,” Jeremy says.

As well as controlling light throughout the day, the screens come into play according to the varied coastal climate whilst influencing the sense of privacy and security. During cooler periods, they are able to be opened to various degrees to allow the sun deep into the house. When it is warm, they can be closed and the glazed sliding doors opened to allow the home to breathe. With the screens enclosing the building, it is as though one has found a hidden nook in a particularly dense tree canopy. Mesh to the back of some screens allows them to operate like a flywire on a tent, creating a layered sensibility that offers grades of openness and enclosure, such that one may sit protected from view and the sun while enjoying the experience of fresh air and the sounds of ocean drifting through. Then, when they are opened entirely, the full outlook is allowed in, as if simply sitting on a deck in the landscape.

As well as controlling light throughout the day, the screens come into play according to the varied coastal climate whilst influencing the sense of privacy and security.

By blurring the distinction between inside and out, Jan Juc Studio embodies Eldridge Anderson’s approach to architecture and interiors as one. “They are intrinsically linked and form part of the whole,” Jeremy reflects. “For this project, in particular, the line between the exterior of the house and the interiors becomes difficult to define. The interior spaces are deliberately simple to accentuate the key architectural components and philosophy, rather than internal finishes being an applied style.” If there is any differentiation between interior and exterior, it is one purely of condition, not of approach or aesthetic. “Consideration was given to the way each surface was going to be used or be exposed to certain conditions,” he says. Predominantly, Jan Juc Studio is a timber house, made up of a number of timber layers that subtly express their use. Externally the timber will weather and grey, while internally the architects lean in to its richer qualities, aware that they will be retained simply by virtue of protection from the elements.

“The structure of the house is constructed from beautiful reclaimed blackbutt timber posts and floor beams, [on] which we invested a lot of effort over many months honing and finishing in protective oil,” Jeremy explains. As the majority of the perimeter walls are operable glazed doors, the exterior screens make up a significant part of the interior finish, hence all sides of the battens were oiled and treated in the same way. “We embraced that idea, so when the weathered, grey timber screens are propped open, the warm timber structure reveals itself like a precisely crafted piece of joinery.” Continuing this approach, the recycled timber structure – “sourced from old Australian wool sheds, which we thought was a nice link to utility and longevity of our new structure” – is carried through as the internal floor. Similarly, the steel used in the frames to the screens, the front door and galvanised roof, gutters and downpipes is picked up internally in the benchtops and central table. “Again, we considered how these items would be used, and we felt that the crispness and discipline of the steel were best suited to this application,” says Jeremy.

Predominantly, Jan Juc Studio is a timber house, made up of a number of timber layers that subtly express their use.

Underpinned by this rigorous approach to detail, materiality, form and function, Jan Juc Studio is a carefully crafted, restrained yet nuanced response to the qualities of its setting and requirements of its brief. Drawing on memory to intensify the inhabitants’ connection to the site, for Eldridge Anderson Architects the building’s success lies in channelling such personal experiences into a refined and cohesive outcome. As the architects reflect, “we like to think it achieves a purity we hadn’t previously achieved and hope to explore through the next iteration of projects in the future.”