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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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Allen’s Rivulet House by Room 11
HomesHabitusliving Editor

Allen’s Rivulet House by Room 11

Australia

Allen’s Rivulet House overlooks a wild bush valley and Mount Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania. Designed by Room 11 this thoughtful home was awarded the The Esmond Dorney Award for Residential Architecture in 2011.


A few years ago Drew and Bea Beswick decided to move from mainland Australia to start a new life in Tasmania. They traded their hectic city lifestyles for 30 hectares of bushland outside of Hobart where they had bought a parcel of land just a few years earlier.

Daunted by the towering gums and eucalypts they found growing on the block  (plus a few Tassy Devils), the Beswick’s decided to aks their friend and architect Aaron Roberts to help them design a home that was sensitive to its context. The couple wanted to create a place in which the kitchen would be at the the hearth of the home, and in which nature would play the absolute starring role.

Room 11 happily took on the Beswick’s brief and used a grid shape to guide the spatial configuration.

“The building is conceived as a dark container in the landscape, a protective armour revealing a timber inner where outdoor activities take place within the confines of the building envelope,” says Roberts.

“Outdoor spaces are wrapped in celery top pine and offer various levels of shelter from the wide ranging Tasmanian weather conditions,”

“An entry portal acts as a psychological marker, where views to the landscape are taken away, suggesting a moment of self reflection – I am home, the worries of a day’s work left behind,” Roberts says.

The rangy two-storey spanning 346 square metres, coated in black weather-resistant paneling called Lysaght and is located ontop of a hill to maximise views.

“I’m interested in this idea of the house being a veil through which you reinterpret or re-view the landscape,” Mr. Roberts said in a recent interview with the New York Times.

View more projects by Room 11.

Room 11

Room11.com.au

All photography by Ben Hosking

BenHosking.com.au


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Habitusliving Editor

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Ben HoskingHome ArchitectureHouse ArchitectureResidential ArchitectureRoom 11


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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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