Barn Inspired – Mornington Peninsula House by Abe McCarthy Architects and AV-ID

Words by Bronwyn Marshall
Photography by Shannon McGrath
Interior Design by AV-ID
Landscaping Barber Design

With a connection to the land and its rural origins, Mornington Peninsula House speaks to a contextually responsive vernacular, while also being crisply contemporary. Abe McCarthy Architects and AV-ID craft a series of interconnected forms that allow for a separation of function, bound through a shared warmth and textural materiality.

 Aptly removed from the urban workings of nearby Melbourne, Mornington Peninsula House sits comfortably in its Flinders milieu, softly blending into the surrounds. A residence of barn-like forms, the home takes musing from the surrounding contextual rural language and reinterprets its own contemporary iteration, refined through attuned detailing and craft. Breaking the whole of the mass of the residence down into individual forms further reduces an overall weighted feeling on site and allows for each to signal its function – much akin to the placement of rural buildings across a farm. The composition comes together with a considered deliberation and curates views outward, reminding residents of their placement within the land. As a combined effort, Abe McCarthy Architects and AV-ID carefully bring modern sensibilities together with an appropriate response to place.

The composition comes together with a considered deliberation and curates views outward, reminding residents of their placement within the land.

Built by Gstruct, and together with landscape by Barber Design, Mornington Peninsula House sits amongst a curated immediate garden setting, buffering between the built and the natural. The resulting home becomes a true celebration of timber, encasing the pitched gable forms up to their peaks, with metal sheeting signalling rain fall to their collection points. The same Tasmanian oak is further brought inward, adding warmth and texture within each of the spaces and reinforcing the heights internally. Curated openings connect the experience of the home with the surrounding landscape and provide punctuated relief to the forms on site.

The placement of each peaked form ensures the removal of a distinct back or front face to the home and instead sees an arrangement that participates with its site, optimising connections to the surrounds. The sense of textural depth is intentional, with an internal approach that emphasises layers of natural and polished finishes, enriched through the selection of inserted furniture, lighting and artwork. Integrated joinery allows seamless storage and support and becomes part of the architecture of the spaces. The forms and open connectedness of the home is then expressed through the double and single height spaces, pulling the eye upward to openings or allowing it to settle in the more compressed and retreating spaces.

The forms and open connectedness of the home is then expressed through the double and single height spaces, pulling the eye upward to openings or allowing it to settle in the more compressed and retreating spaces.

In its engagement with the landscape, Mornington Peninsula House brings elements of its siting into the resulting architectural response, seeing Abe McCarthy and AV-ID ensure a firm embedding of the home in place.