OK House by Stephen Collier Architect

Simply over an hour south of Sydney, the suburb of Scarborough sits quietly inside the Illawarra’s coastal edge, one in every of a collection of small settlements threaded between escarpment and ocean. The topography is quick and defining: a steep, vegetated cliff to the west; the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the east; and, between them, a slender inhabited strip the place homes, gardens and infrastructure (one fundamental native highway and a regional prepare line) are tightly held in place. It’s a panorama formed as a lot by compression as by outlook, the place proximity to landform is felt as strongly as any distant view.

It’s inside this context that OK Home by architect Stephen Collier is ready. On this explicit website, the sense of compression intensifies. The railway line runs immediately adjoining, elevated and shut, introducing a relentless layer of motion into an already constrained situation. Passing trains register as each sound and light-weight vibration, in order that what may in any other case learn as a quiet coastal setting is as a substitute outlined by a troublesome intersection of panorama and infrastructure. A extra exacting architectural response was subsequently required.

The challenge marked a transfer from Sydney for owner-architect Stephen and his accomplice, much less a sea change than knowledgeable recalibration away from the frenzy of town. The positioning, acquired quickly after the COVID–19 pandemic, is tough by virtually any measure: irregularly formed in plan, constrained by setbacks, with its northern edge operating parallel to the railway and topic to further controls. A steep 15-metre fall from the railway line to the bottom level of the location, mixed with dangers of overland circulation, landslip and bushfire, restricted any standard strategy to excavation and siting.

In response, the constructing sits flippantly on the land. A metal body is supported on 4 appropriately sized concrete columns, every based 6 metres deep into rock, permitting the home to hover above the terrain moderately than reshape it. The plan adopts a rhomboidal geometry, slipping between 9 present bushes – together with a big Moreton Bay Fig – whereas sustaining minimal clearance to the location boundaries. A lot of the development was prefabricated, with major parts assembled off-site and put in in speedy succession, making an attempt to scale back waste and foregrounding effectivity.

The home that emerges doesn’t pursue the anticipated. The place others may orient outward to the ocean, this one turns inwards to a courtyard, permitting one to deal with the sky, and to the filtered presence of bushes. It’s conceived as a spot of retreat, prioritising privateness with out severing connection to its environment. From inside, the suburban situation recedes; what stays is cover, escarpment, and the sluggish motion of daylight, drawn in via well-positioned openings all year long. Though the home is nominally north-facing, the escarpment limits winter solar, whereas the adjoining railway – additionally to the north – introduces noise and visible interruption. The courtyard mediates these competing situations, performing as a managed supply of sunshine and a buffer to the skin. Openings are subsequently used sparingly and with intent – much less about abundance, extra about placement.

Set out on a single stage, the plan reads as a unfastened association of 9 irregular volumes, their capabilities intentionally indeterminate. Solely these areas requiring companies – kitchen and loo – are fastened; the rest are left open to occupation and alter over time. This ambiguity is supported by a collection of sliding parts separating the inner courtyard from the inside, some absolutely glazed, others strong timber, which permit rooms to increase, contract or shut off totally, frequently recalibrating levels of openness, separation and use.

Roof planes fall inward, directing water and leaf litter to accessible gutters that may be maintained safely from inside – a realistic transfer that additionally produces beneficiant ceiling heights on the perimeter of the home. In bushfire situations, Stephen explains, this geometry permits water to be directed throughout weak openings, including an extra layer of resilience. Spatially, the resolving of the conflicting geometries between plan and part have added to the indeterminacy of the rooms inside. The fragmented geometries made me consider the late Frank Gehry’s personal home in Santa Monica, California, although right here they’re somewhat cleaner and extra restrained.

Externally, the constructing is intentionally muted. Fibre cement sheeting, merely detailed and muted in tone, meets each funds and planning constraints with out extra. Internally, nevertheless, the ambiance shifts. Color, texture and materials richness are concentrated inside the areas of occupation, the place they are often most immediately skilled. Stephen has used all however one color from a polychromatic vary of ceramic tiles in a daring and assured method.

The top result’s a home outlined much less by outlook than by calibration – of sunshine, of enclosure and publicity, and of dwelling. A spot that holds its occupants quietly, whereas remaining carefully attuned to the situations that form it.