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Issue 59 - The Life Outside Issue

Issue 59

The Life Outside Issue

Introducing the Life Outside issue of Habitus magazine. With life increasingly being absorbed into a digital space, there is never a more important moment to hold something tangible. In this context, the power of nature to have a physiological impact on our sense of wellbeing has never been more important. So how can we cultivate the benefits of the our natural environment in the most intimate of places – our homes? This was the question that helped to bring this issue of Habitus to life.

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A Plot in Common
HomesHolly Cunneen

A Plot in Common

Australia

When the Shoo family fell in love with an old brick barn they didn’t know it came with a house connected to Robin Boyd and a neighbour with an eye for local history.


When an old house changes hands, the new owners often only get the briefest glimpses of its intimate history as a home for other people, but in those rare situations where past lives are revealed, the experience can be so rich and rewarding.

A Plot in Common | Habitus Living

This has been the case for the Shoo family, who relocated a few years ago from the Gold Coast to a small farm an hour or so north of Melbourne. The Ben and Tash Shoo have thrown themselves into the local community, but it’s been the relationship they’ve forged with their neighbour, Bruce, who lived on their farm as a small boy, which has arguably been most enlightening. His illuminating stories have covered everything from the nineteenth-century origins of the beautiful brick barn to how his dad bought plans for their house from The Age in the 1940s, as part of Robin Boyd’s Small Homes Service.

A Plot in Common | Habitus Living

70 years later, Ben has designed a modern extension to the house, Tash is curating an ongoing series of gatherings and workshops to support and connect the local community of artists and artisans, and their family is living off the land, growing veggies and fruit, and breeding and raising animals for meat. This property was already rich with history, and that richness is echoed in the daily life of its latest occupants.

Read the full story in Habitus issue #34, available now.

Words by Mark Scruby

Photography by Marnie Hawson

A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living
A Plot in Common | Habitus Living

About the Author

Holly Cunneen

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A Plot in CommonHome ArchitectureHouse ArchitectureKynetonResidential ArchitectureRobyn BoydShooThe Old Girltreechange


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Issue 59 - The Life Outside Issue

Issue 59

The Life Outside Issue

Introducing the Life Outside issue of Habitus magazine. With life increasingly being absorbed into a digital space, there is never a more important moment to hold something tangible. In this context, the power of nature to have a physiological impact on our sense of wellbeing has never been more important. So how can we cultivate the benefits of the our natural environment in the most intimate of places – our homes? This was the question that helped to bring this issue of Habitus to life.

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