Federal House, New South Wales Home, Australian Real Estate Architecture, NSW Property Photos
Federal House in New South Wales
2 November 2023
Design: Edition Office
Location: Federal, New South Wales, Australia
Photos by Ben Hosking
Federal House, Australia
Edition Office is an architecture studio encompassing cultural, social and technological research, enabling exploration of material expression, form and spatial practice. The experiential qualities of our work enable projects which re-articulate relationships between communities and place. Our buildings enhance and enable connections and interfaces which provoke, question and enrich both occupants and the public realm.
Edition Office work across a wide array of typologies and scale, including residential, institutional, commercial, education, urban design and interiors.
The Federal House provides a vessel through which to enable habitation and the ongoing experience of a particular place and time. Within the folding hills of its hinterland site, the home acts as both experiential container for this place and as a conditioning object, consciously aware of its outsider status within the traditional ownership and legacy of this landscape.
The project establishes a relationship between “site and modifier”, between place and object, and is envisaged to enable multiple readings, from beyond and from within. A reverberation of the settler colonial homestead typology, the home carries verandah DNA into a tightly controlled envelope allowing modestly scaled living and bedrooms spaces to expand into a covered outdoor living space.
Grounding the project is a subterranean pool linked to a garden void at the heart of the home, and to a northern aperture framing the view to the valleys and hinterland horizon beyond.
Architecture, specifically the house, is an act of enabling shelter, a vessel through which in turn enables habitation and the ongoing experience of a particular time and place. Within the folding hills of it’s hinterland site, the Federal House acts as both experiential container for this place and as a conditioning object, consciously aware of its outsider status within the traditional ownership and legacy of this landscape.
The project was considered as a vehicle for a relationship between“site and modifier”, the place and the object, and envisaged to enable multiple readings, from beyond and from within.
At distance the building is recessive, a shadow within the vast landscape. On arrival the projects fifth façade, the roof, transfers the work into sharp. relief, a precise object purposefully foreign to its Bundjalung country landscape and the deep time frame of the indigenous heritage in which it is located. On closer inspection, a highly textural outer skin of thick timber battens contrasts the earlier sense of a machined tectonic, allowing organic material gestures to drive the dialogue with physical human intimacy.
A reverberation of the settler colonial homesteads typology, the home carries verandah DNA into a tightly controlled envelope allowing modestly scaled living and bedrooms spaces to expand into a covered outdoor living space. This expansion and contraction of the interior allows shifts between the intimate and the public, between immediate landscape and the expansive unfolding landscape to the north. The deep verandah space allows for a shadow gradient to emerge between inner and outer thresholds, enhancing the sense of sanctuary from the surrounds and its variable weather conditions. It allows one to be outside in torrential rain and avoid the burning midday sun.
Anchoring the project beneath the upper platform is a subterranean pool, linked to a planted void in the heart of the home. On entry, this void allows a glimpse through ferns to the still body of water beneath. Alternate to the expanding upper level, the descent into the pool void reveals an intense inferiority, the lighter upper materiality giving way to heavy mass, grounding the building and bringing with it a heightened sense of place. On entering the water, the building becomes an instrument for the phenomenological. The mirrored horizon at the end of the pool draws one to its edge, and back again to the garden platform, its cavernous volume resembling more closely a freshwater swimming hole than a classic lap pool. Discussions with the client which drew from texts by Zumthor, Tanizaki and Pallasmaa, allowed the journey into this atypical condition and they must be applauded for venturing into the unknown here.
All spaces are naturally ventilated with air drawn across the cooler pool surface and into the upper surrounding verandah spaces, helping to stabilise the ambient temperature throughout the home. Rain water is harvested in a 60,000L tank. The building utilises an aerated wastewater treatment system and includes infrastructure to utlise a PV solar array on the planned future storage shed.
A primary ambition for the project was to employ the architecture to cultivate a heightened phenomenological encounter within the home and with its hinterland surroundings.
Discussions with the client focused upon providing a home-as-sanctuary; an elemental respite from a high-pressure professional life. Through the prospect and refuge relationship to its site, the home provides an intimate proximity to the hillside, forest and grassland to the rear of the site, while framing a panoramic gaze across the distant horizon from deep within the heavily inset living platform. Custom door pulls invite a tactile engagement, while the sheltered black-concrete swimming pool, offers a further retreat while framing an additional encounter with the forested horizon.
The home is divided into a clear delineation of program, with the shared living spaces nested to both the north and south sides of the central garden allowing layered social opportunities while maintaining connectedness across the ferns of the garden. The sleeping and bathing spaces within the eastern wing provide a series modest enclaves with drawal, rest and solitude.
The structural design was heavily work-shopped with the engineers to enable the generous cantilevers whilst maintaining a sense of structural lightness within the primary living platform of the home. Custom designed recessed downlights, door pulls and super heavy-weight gates all required intimate working relationships with the makers and fabricators of the project, whose workmanship, dedication and care have all come together to bring the home to life.
The budget was directed to providing a home as sanctuary, amplifying the homes experiential qualities. The interior rooms are all modest on size, and support the use of the open-air halls as expanded outdoor living spaces. Materials were selected for their tactile qualities, minimal maintenance and longevity. Restraint in the size and finishes of the kitchen and joinery throughout the, along with a simple truss framed roof structure allowed for greater investments such as the deep black pigmented in-situ concrete.
Federal House in New South Wales, Australia – Building Information
Design: Edition Office – https://edition-office.com/
Lead Architects – Kim Bridgland & Aaron Roberts
Construction: S J Reynolds construction
Structural Engineering: Westera Partners
Landscape: Florian Wild
Project size: 424 sqm
Completion date: 2020
Photography: Ben Hosking
Federal House, New South Wales, Australia images / information received 021123 from Edition Office Architects
Location: Federal, NSW, Australia
Architecture in Australia
Architecture in Australia
Australia Architecture Designs – chronological list
New South Wales Properties
Dulwich Hill Duo, Dulwich Hill, New South Wales
Design and Project Architect: Blake Letnic Architects
photo : Katherine Lu
Dulwich Hill Duo, New South Wales House
Escarpment House, Gerringong, Illawarra region, New South Wales, Australia
Architects: ATELIER ANDY CARSON
Escarpment House in Gerringong
North Curl Curl House
Architect: Rolf Ockert
North Curl Curl House
Headland House, Gerringong, Illawarra region, New South Wales
Design: ATELIER ANDY CARSON
New House in Gerringong
Clear Water Bay Avenue House, Clear Island Waters, Gold Coast, Queensland
Design: Superdraft Architects
Clear Island Waters House
Australian Architectural Designs
Contemporary Architecture in Australia – architectural selection below:
Australian Architect Offices : Studio Listings
Comments for the Federal House, New South Wales, Australia designed by Edition Office page welcome