Explore Australian holiday home Amongst the Eucalypts

Amongst the Eucalypts, an australian holiday home fit to resist bushfires, designed as a rectangular box that seals hermetically — (Image credit: Courtesy of JGDW)

Seal Rocks offers the perfect backdrop for an Australian holiday home – the site in New South Wales is rich in natural life (a breeding site for its namesake animal), overlooking the blue sea and awash with greenery. Yet anyone aware of the country's devastating bushfires of 2020 will know that such a glorious setting can also be vulnerable to human-made disaster. Amongst the Eucalypts is a new residential project that aims to tackle just that – providing a modern, architecture-led house that at the same time can resist fire damage.

Openness meets protection in this Australian holiday home

The design is centred on the idea of creating a contemporary refuge, carefully balancing immersion in nature and the idea of shelter. The architects crafted a design that feels elegantly pared down, using minimalist lines and simple geometries that contrast with, and also highlight, the surrounding native eucalypts and casuarina forest. Its compact form is deliberate, affording a sense of lightness.

The architects explain: 'The home appears lightly anchored to the hillside, the plan breaking and shifting with the natural contours of the land to form a series of outdoor zones and courtyards that support open-air living and quiet retreat. Though fully grounded, the building conveys a sense of suspension among the trees, with filtered light and carefully framed sightlines revealing glimpses of the wider landscape.'

At the same time, this Australian holiday home includes pivoting façade panels, retractable mesh shutters and durable, locally sourced materials. These features allow the home to be open and at one with the surrounding nature – or remain closed off, protecting its interior and carefully cocooning life inside.

The architectural design was conceived after in-depth consultation with local bushfire experts, as well as local craftspeople, who helped create a number of the bespoke systems employed in the house. The concrete and fibre-cement structure gives the house its 'armoured aesthetic', as the architects describe it; but it's a look that is at the same time refreshingly clean and unmistakably contemporary.

'The clients didn’t want to impose on the landscape – they wanted a house that invited them to dwell more deeply within it. It was their commitment to preserving the native landscape that inspired us to rethink what’s possible in bushfire-prone environments,' says practice founder Jason Gibney.

'The result is a sense of lightness and suspension, a profound connection to place: goannas wander past, waterfalls rush by, and the canopy reveals itself through shifting viewpoints. More than a place of shelter, the house balances openness and refuge, lightness and permanence. It teaches us that we do not have to compromise when choosing to live amongst the eucalyptus.'

jgdw.com.au

TOPICS

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).