This Gorgeous Timber and Brick Home in Rural Australia Was Inspired by a Ski Chalet

October 06, 2022

This Gorgeous Timber and Brick Home in Rural Australia Was Inspired by a Ski Chalet

Architect Richard Cole admits it’s odd to draw a comparison to a winter retreat, but the family escape operates in many of the same ways.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners.

Project Details:

Location: New South Wales, Australia

Architects: Richard Cole Architecture

Structural Engineer: Westlake Punnett Engineers

Landscape Architect: Trish Dobson Landscape Architect

From the Architects: "A new owner-built farmhouse in Bellawongarah, on the tablelands above Kangaroo Valley, takes cues from traditional rural building materials and forms. The splayed plan opens to the landscape and generates a serene central courtyard around which circulation paths are placed. Built from dry pressed bricks, gray ironbark, stone, concrete, steel and glass, the dwelling is built to endure and weather beautifully over time. With high levels of thermal mass and a solar passive sectional diagram, the building is highly insulated against the seasonal extremes. The farmhouse is designed as a place for family and friends to gather. A sumptuous garden with vegetables and orchards by Trish Dobson Landscape Architect perfectly complements the dwelling. It is meticulously crafted, a testament to the vision and determination of the owner and the team he brought together for construction.

"With a raw, warm materiality and places of cave-like refuge and promontory-like prospect, the house as a container for living provides the occupants with daily experiences that resonate with the strong presence of the surrounding landscape. Designed as a place for gathering, the hearth serves as a focal gathering point and the kitchen as a generous central hub for the preparation of food. The design creates a place that is the antithesis of urban, a place to be grounded.

"The building form responds to the broad topography and the extensive new garden. The climate of the plateau is more extreme than the nearby coast, with higher rainfall, cooler summers and colder winters. Unlike temperate coastal dwellings, the house is not designed to be extensively opened up. Rather the interior is carefully delineated and separated from the outside with screens and judiciously placed openings. The house has an efficient hydronic heating system and is not air-conditioned. Double-glazed windows with hardwood frames, highly insulated floors and roofs and the raw concrete slab provide a solar passive section heated by northern highlight windows.

"The owner’s brief to the architect was to create an authentic rural house with the appeal and character traits of a ski chalet. While this may appear to be a disparate building typology, many of the character traits are both appropriate and desirable in a rural dwelling. The response was a focus on refuge with the provision of extensive prospect over the surrounding landscape, warm, raw, durable natural materials, a central anchoring hearth, excellent thermal performance, private sleeping spaces away from noisy living areas and a spectacular central living, dining and kitchen space where family and guests can converge."