area 107 | glenn murcutt

architect: Glenn Murcutt

location: Bingie Point, New South Wales

year: 1999

Kenneth Frampton has not hesitated to define the site where the house is built, about two hundred and fifty kilometres from Sydney, as heroic. Its beauty is, in particular, due to the scale of the open landscape where the eye may range across a very vast horizon. The customers used to camp in this place and when they felt the need to build a stable dwelling there, they have asked Glenn Murcutt to design one which could maintain the characters of that experience. The intention was therefore to ideate a project which centred on the quality of the light, the feeling of vulnerability, the fact of being in the open air, without a privileged front, where one could experience the forces of the elements like in a tent. The house therefore strives to relate with the landscape through its elongated form, opening itself as much as possible to capture it. The plan is therefore dilated in its longitudinal extension, and the spans are greater than those of his previous houses. Wood has been replaced by steel, also for this constructive requirement, and its presence and structure profoundly influences the image. The light enters and is diffused in all rooms also thanks to the curve of the roof, which channels it towards the interior of the house. The light thus arrives in all rooms without being blocked by the partitions, which are kept below a height of two metres. Also in this case the plan is divided in two parallel strips, with a clear distinction between served and serving areas. In 1999 the studio on the eastern side was annexed, through the addition of a new span. The two parts the house is currently formed of are thus symmetric with respect to the original veranda, and the parents’ area is distinguished and separated from that of the children; the two parts may be used independently as both vaunt a kitchen and living room in addition to bedrooms and bathrooms.