Stay Wild—Anglesea Holiday House for Multigenerational Family

In the idyllic bush setting of Victoria’s Anglesea sits the recently completed Dusty Miller House. The project, by Not All Architecture, skilfully adds to the legacy of modestly-sized dwellings on amply vegetated sites that exemplifies the region’s charm. The house utilises richly textured materials and sophisticated mass plantings to embody this character and inspire other proposed additions in the area to maintain the specifics of its bush-meets-coast appeal.

Not All Architecture is an emerging Surf Coast architecture practice focused on exploring finely detailed small footprint houses. The house was commissioned by a retired regional couple slowly transitioning to the coast. The project replaces a poorly built dwelling with an efficiently detailed, well-built new home, ensuring it can mature gracefully over countless decades.

The Dusty Miller House has a confident street presence that both references and energises the common Anglesea housing typologies. This bush character is influenced by local planning parameters that require increased offsets and limited boundary fencing. The project is positioned close to the road and utilises this relationship as an accessible way to transition between the two stories of the house; the carport and main living spaces are positioned above the street via a timber decked ramp, while the guest room areas and garden spaces are located below as the site slopes downwards to the rear.

The large expanses of timber across the project, including the spotted gum decking and ironbark wall cladding, which both extend deep into the shadowed carport void, were sourced by the owner’s son-in-law. With their contrasting silver tone, these elements are framed horizontally by galvanised metal fascias and railings that connect all the elements across the project together. The lower level is finished with a recessive dark exterior palette to ensure the upper level and garden spaces take visual precedence.

To the south side of the front entry ramp is the main door into the upper level which leads into an open plan kitchen, dining and living space. This room has a unique layout prompted by the duelling aspects of a skewed site and the desire to incorporate a large wall of glazing facing true north to maximise solar orientation. The resulting wedge-shaped room puts the kitchen and pantry in the wider portion closer to the street and the living in the cosier end as the room narrows.

Positioned immediately off this north façade is a dramatic curved terrace that smoothly connects the competing geometric agendas of the project. A covered dining area is located at the street end of the terrace, which includes an operable door that can either reveal or conceal this space from the public. Defining the edge of this zone is a fine vertical galvanised railing that extends back along the walkway, expanding out at the rear portion to create a casual seating area. Phoebe Clarke of Not All Architecture highlights the importance of this exterior terrace as a double skin, with its battened canopy and railings that work together to create a beautiful array of dappled light and much-needed sun protection during the summer months.

The terrace is book-ended by the primary bedroom suite positioned at the back of the site. This element is accessed off the rear of the living area through an office zone that frames the view of a significant tree. The plan cranks to orientate the bedroom views eastward over tree canopies towards Point Addis. The wardrobe and bathroom areas sit within this geometry shift and the elegance of this transition exhibits the sophisticated execution by the Surfcoast Construction team. The lower level incorporates bedroom, bathroom and living spaces for when the house expands to accommodate larger groups. These areas feature burnished concrete floors and are finished in a high quality, but efficient manner to ensure it can handle the hustle of summer vacations in a cost-effective manner.

The larger footprint of the upper level is suspended on slender metal posts which maximises the vegetation on the lot. The gardens, by Simon Taylor Landscape Design, focus on reintroducing native plantings to the site in a manner that creates a series of linked, but distinct exterior spaces. The largest of these is framed and enclosed by the sweeping terrace above and connects back to the street via a gently sloping gravel path.

The Dusty Miller House touches the site lightly to allow the sublime coastal landscape to flourish in tandem with the bold new form. The design’s gestures work cleverly together to provide a flexible layout that embraces the key siting elements without over complicating the build. Not All Architecture has adeptly found the balance required of bespoke new construction within native coastal settings in a manner that hopes to inspire the continued push for the sympathetic development of the Surf Coast region.

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