Triptych – Koonya by Room11

Every so often, architecture takes a small departure from itself and sidles a little closer to the realm of art, leveraging a creative freedom to disrupt the algorithm and make space for influences of a different, deeper, more intuitive kind. Koonya by Room11, located in south-west Tasmania, is one such example. A triptych project – three interrelated yet singular built entities, part residential architecture, part art form – has emerged through the serendipitous meeting of likeminded people, the establishment of a dialogue between landscape and built form and a healthy dose of risk taking.

Thomas Bailey, architect and Director of Room11, was already familiar with the pocket of the Tasman Peninsula that now holds Koonya. Having grown up nearby and long admired the brooding, primitive landscape that connects to Tasmania’s mainland by an isthmus cutting through the tumultuous waters of the Tasman Sea, Thomas harbours a depth of understanding of the land that reaches beyond its metrics, aspect and terrain. When its current owner proposed working together to design a house that was to be neither “gracious nor gratuitous,” one that would pay homage to the dramatic magnetism of its location, a collaborative journey was embarked upon that would poetically reconcile built and natural landscapes.

What began as the conceptual design of a home that would exert itself within the elemental power of the landscape through brutalist form balanced by tightly edited volumes, considered programming and expansive glazing also became an agile revision of intents as time passed.

“Our design thinking is never limited by the boundary fence, or even the horizon,” explains Thomas of the gently unfolding process guided by a client and architect who share a similar discernment. “It’s only limited by a greater understanding of the place.” Alongside this richness of context, Thomas found his methodologies indulged by the creative spirit of his client. “You get a lot of bandwidth to explore when you know someone is a genuinely creative person,” he says, a sentiment that has shaped an evolution of place as opposed to simply providing shelter, views and an appealing composition. What began as the conceptual design of a home that would exert itself within the elemental power of the landscape through brutalist form balanced by tightly edited volumes, considered programming and expansive glazing also became an agile revision of intents as time passed.

Underpinned by a human deference to the tangible beauty and power of nature, the sense of place that lays upon Koonya is defined by a compelling gravitas, uncultivated in spite of efforts to tame it and loosely synonymous with Thomas’s expansive conceptual approach to the project. This has been realised in a pavilion-style retreat (the Glass House, featured in The Local Project Issue 04), an ineffable monument in the landscape (the Pulmonum) and, most recently, the main house.

Somehow, the humming force of nature has been reflected in the rigorous concrete and glass forms, Room11 channelling the unceasing momentum of the landscape’s rhythms and using design to frame, echo and counterbalance it to ultimately shape a place of deep sanctuary – a place to draw breath.

Each building has been shaped by an “oblique and gentle relationship” that exists between the three of them and with the landscape. Decisions of where to site and orient the architectural forms have come about by “reading the land and understanding foraging routes of birds and animals, water courses, where the trees might drop limbs and simply where felt comfortable.” The main house shares a relationship with the Glass House, sitting “slightly off the axis with a small amount of observation, mostly obscured by landscape” but offering enough visual cues that it makes itself known. Meanwhile, the Pulmonum is sited 800 metres from the house, aligning precisely with its elevation to create a linear conversation between the two.

Somehow, the humming force of nature has been reflected in the rigorous concrete and glass forms, Room11 channelling the unceasing momentum of the landscape’s rhythms and using design to frame, echo and counterbalance it to ultimately shape a place of deep sanctuary – a place to draw breath. The program of the main house has been devised purely for this sentiment, appearing as a volume protruding from the earth in a display of strength that gives the impression of it being able to hold its own as a place of inherent refuge. Whilst the Pulmonum exists as a “purely experimental place without permanent occupation, an item in the landscape,” forged from an evolution of Italian classicism Thomas admits felt like “a dangerous place to go architecturally,” the main house is a “massive departure.”

“The Pulmonum is open and immediately beneath your feet. It brings you back to your body on this earth. The pavilion is its opposite, appearing as two horizontal planes, so there is a loose formal relationship between the two.”

“The Pulmonum is open and immediately beneath your feet. It brings you back to your body on this earth. The pavilion is its opposite, appearing as two horizontal planes, so there is a loose formal relationship between the two. The house, however, had a functional agenda that dictated a greater amount of variation from the original point of departure.”

Beginning with fenestration to establish where windows would be placed to capture the view, the program of the main house followed as a tertiary response that deviated from typical residential layouts. Finding again that the curiosity and creativity harnessed more commonly in art was better able to lend itself to outcomes that found a kinship with the surrounding language of the land, decisions were made that “created methodologies within the perfection and precision [of the architecture] that allows you to be more personal,” explains Thomas. This is apparent in the decision to “project all the functions to the back” and give each “a certain size for them to operate at optimum,” whilst farther through, the form thrusts itself out over the land, unapologetically cantilevered and ending in a glazed wall visually dissolving the threshold between inside and out to bring those fundamental qualities of domestic comfort – warmth, shelter, dryness – into focus.

If the ultimate life of this building is to be projected into the landscape, is that not more exciting as a sequence of experiences if you’ve been buried first?”

The decision to submerge one end of the home’s concrete mass in the earth and then progress steadily through to an experience of levitation above it at the other end, Thomas says, was one made to conjure comfort within the experience of being exposed to the might of the landscape. “How do you feel comfortable in a vast landscape? Being buried in the hill. Positioning things to the rear. If the ultimate life of this building is to be projected into the landscape, is that not more exciting as a sequence of experiences if you’ve been buried first?”

“Making such a stern and direct gesture allowed us to make idiosyncratic and light-hearted addendums to the axial experience,” explains Thomas. It is a cognisant gesture towards explaining a pillar of Koonya’s triptych metamorphosis, one that has emerged as a dedication to understanding the qualities of the site, those elements that reflect the vast spectrum of nature so singular to Tasmania, and then coaxing them from architectural responses that harmonise with them. In this case, three indelible responses, unlike anything that would have occurred anywhere else, have arisen – simply by virtue of the serendipitous convergence of this particular client, with this particular architect and this particular context. The result is three buildings of remarkable specificity, embodying a unique, inimitable and unquantifiable quality more typically associated with a work of art.