This is by far one of the most breathtaking holiday homes I have ever seen. Designed by Melbourne-based architecture company McBride Charles Ryan, this structure won the House category at the ‘World Architecture Festival’ in Barcelona 2009 and it is truly stunning.
Situated in heavily treed sand dunes only two hours from Melbourne, Australia, this modern holiday home stands in complete contrast to the owner’s city home. Due to the constraints of the site, the architects carefully considered location, prevailing winds, possible points of entry, topography and vegetation.
Inspired by the idea of the origami version of the Klein bottle, this unique piece of architecture holds beauty as well as the promise of new form and spatial sequence, while radically merging floor, wall and ceiling, inside and outside.
The house is a lightweight steel framed structure largely clad in cement and metal sheet. The building harvests water, is double glazed and the large cavities between the external and internal cladding allow packing with bulk insulation. The central courtyard adds cooling and cross ventilation, windows are hardwood and the flooring bamboo and artificial lighting have been selected for their efficiency.
“…architecture does not spring naturally from place, and yet it is the beautiful abstract idea, that when carefully selected and developed can suddenly seem as natural as the tee tree that surrounds it.”
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