Lake View
A home that creates a world within a world…
Project Details
Location: Canberra, ACT
Completion: 2019
Long admiring the work of the Pritzker prize winning Japanese architect, Tadao Ando the clients had aspirations of a home that used his famous gestures of material, poetics and connection to landscape. Needless to say, concrete, poetics and courtyards were central to the brief. The four-bedroom home makes the most of the long street frontage with an off-form concrete wall wrapping down both sides of the site and extending most of the length of the street frontage in one simple gesture.
The presentation is gutsy: minimalist brutalism. The concrete monolith balances and projects from the mountain above a recessive lower level. The strength of the building’s presence in the context of the bushy, rocky backdrop of Mt Ainslie is intended to suggest a piece of the mountain has shifted down and lays resting above an eroded rock platform.
Stiving to balance the need for privacy and the offering of panoramic views to the west, the concrete ribbon defines three edges while the master bedroom suite encloses the landscape to create an inner precinct. A private courtyard bathed in sunlight and hidden from all other than those invited – a family home that resolved as a world within a world.
This house is a joy to be in. The house functions, both in its design and purpose. It ticks all the right boxes. Moving throughout the building is a truly magical experience. The height and generous proportions set the tone for the house — Monumental but also elegant. Welcoming and bright. Every room is filled with light. Every surface is bouncing with colour and texture. The building rests beautifully on the mountain landscape. You see the landscape as you move throughout the building. It makes you appreciate this City, it’s landmarks and the surrounding landscape in a very simple way. The house offers many delightfully quiet calming spaces to relax, create and to entertain. As a family home it is immensely satisfying, practical with a whole lot of fun. Through the design and access to nature, there is space for freedom and creativity —to explore and play, evolve and grow and to create the most magical memories within.
