Rather than treating its national park setting as a view to be framed, Treetop House allows the surrounding landscape to become part of everyday life. Designed by Studio Kennon in Torquay, the home inverts the conventional plan, placing its living spaces among the eucalypt canopy and allowing the changing moods of the Surf Coast to shape the experience of living there.
Instead of placing bedrooms above and living spaces below, Studio Kennon turns the arrangement upside down. The communal spaces occupy the upper floor, where full-height sliding glass doors retract entirely into the walls, opening directly into the surrounding canopy. In a way, it feels like living among the trees.
In summer, the interiors become breezy and open, blurring the threshold between inside and out. During winter, those same spaces contract around a red gum fireplace while the landscape remains present beyond the glass. It is a house designed for the changing character of the coast throughout the year.
The building itself is conceived as a singular sculptural object, an approach informed in part by the client’s background in concrete. The material is used in two distinct finishes: smooth at ground level and heavily sandblasted above, with a subtle horizontal overhang marking the transition between the two. From the street, the home presents a largely enclosed face, preserving privacy while reinforcing its monolithic form. Toward the national park, however, that solidity dissolves into expansive glazing screened by vertical timber louvres that echo the rhythm of the surrounding tree trunks.
Inside, the robust material palette continues through board-formed in-situ concrete, polished concrete floors, Venetian plaster and walnut timber. The weight of these materials is softened by curved walls and rounded thresholds that gently guide movement through the home.
The most striking expression of this approach is the staircase at the centre of the plan. Hand-trowelled in Venetian plaster, it rises through all three levels as a continuous sculptural form, with wall, balustrade and base resolved as a single object. Connecting floors, it choreographs the experience of arrival, drawing visitors upward into the main living spaces while allowing light to wash across its curved surfaces.
Related: Colour with character
The interiors draw directly from the colours of the surrounding landscape. Mustard upholstery recalls eucalypt bark caught in afternoon light, sitting comfortably alongside walnut joinery, cool concrete and deep green stone. These moments of colour provide warmth without distracting from the broader atmosphere, reinforcing the home’s connection to its setting.
Throughout the project, concrete establishes permanence, while curves, filtered light and carefully framed views temper its weight. The result is a home that knows when to protect its occupants and when to disappear into the landscape beyond.
Situated at the threshold between suburb and national park, Treetop House ultimately feels less like an object placed within the landscape than one shaped by it. It responds not only to Torquay’s celebrated summers, but to the quieter seasons that reveal the enduring character of the Surf Coast.
