Corner House by Archier.

 “It was certainly not a typical coastal project where you often can’t see neighbours and there’s little hum from passing traffic,” says architect Chris Gilbert, a director of Archier. 

Conceived for a couple planning their retirement, their brief to Archier was far from predictable. As well as a house that strongly responded to a garden (this courtyard-style garden is designed by landscape architects Openwork), they wanted simply a main bedroom and a separate bedroom for guests. So, rather than an endless number of bedrooms that aren’t regularly used, there’s only two in the 200-square-metre house, with the second/guest bedroom located below the living area and benefiting from its own independent access to the courtyard garden. An office/studio occupies one corner of the courtyard-style house, with the living area in another corner and the kitchen and meals area also occupying its own corner – hence the name given to this project. Even the main bedroom, which occupies the fourth corner of the Flinders house, has more of a Japanese aesthetic with a low bed and built-in nooks for clothes, rather than western-style wardrobes. 

However, the main difference in the treatment of spaces apart from their separation is the five subtle level changes (with the steepest being 600 millimetres) that frame the crucifix-shaped internal courtyard, planted with a combination of native and European species. These level changes not only respond to the slight fall of the site away from the main thoroughfare, but also set up a framework where each level in the house has a different perspective of the garden. “This place feels quite different depending on where you happen to be. If you’re a guest, the bedroom is slightly below ground level which makes you look up to the tree trunks. And for the owners and friends sitting in the lounge, it’s not dissimilar to being in the treetops,” says Gilbert. 

The location, almost an urban context rather than a coastal one, suggested the fortress-like form of the house. Clad in fibro cement panels and sprayed with a paint used on bridges, the exterior walls extend to just under five-metres in height. In contrast, the timber-battened front door, located behind the timber picket fence, suggests a domesticity to the design. “At night, when the porch light is on, the façade has a lantern effect,” says Gilbert, who also enjoys the contrast of the established eucalypt trees in the front garden against the slightly flecked charcoal façade. “We often refer the treatment of this house to an ‘egg’. It appears quite solid and robust from the street, then reveals a softer ‘yoke’ within,” says Gilbert, pointing out the timber-battened ceilings and the compressed stramit orientated board (SOB) used to line the interior walls – reducing sound and also providing thermal insulation. “I grew up in a 1970s Merchant Builder’s house in Central Victoria. This house is certainly not that, but it comes with some of those textures,” says Gilbert, who was conscious of keeping everything simple yet functional. The kitchen, for example, is pared back, with hardwood ply joinery and stainless steel benches. And in keeping with the Japanese aesthetic, less is considerably more. “We wanted to reveal as much structure as possible, ensuring the house and garden felt as one,” he adds.

Those passing by on the nearby motorway will hardly notice this new house at Flinders. Even locals strolling past could easily miss it. However, for the owners, the Corner House represents a change in the way they want to live in their latter years, in a peaceful and inspiring enclave.