Gooseberry Hill House

The world is full of conflict and binary opposition: black and white, good and evil, yes or no. More often than not, we have to make a definite choice between the two: Tea or coffee? Chicken or beef? ...Curved line or straight? But every so often we get the rare chance to savour both options at the same time – to have our cake and eat it too, as it were. The Gooseberry Hill House is one such chance, continuing Iredale Pederson Hook Architects’ fascination with the potential for a symbiotic coexistence of opposites in the built form. Timber boarding and synthetic green plastic. Smooth concrete and textured. Embedded and suspended. Call it the Jekyll and Hyde factor (the architects do).

The symbiosis of these opposites takes place in the choice of structural materials, as well as the fundamental structure of the home itself. One side of a concrete wall is that smooth off-form patina we know so well, while the obverse was poured against industrial bubble wrap for an effect best described by the architects as “furry”. One aspect of the home is completely embedded into the Darling escarpment landscape, while its opposite façade projects at jaunty angles into the open country airspace.

Going into this project, IPH had the benefit of six years’ experience in renovations, and the palette of potential design devices to go with it. The process of synergising essentially conflicting themes involved a measured combination of stitching, clip-on, extrusions, folding and duality of opposites. Ultimately, the juxtaposition of dichotomous themes is merely a means to achieving an end; a method of manipulating the relationship between built form and location, occupant and space, in ways previously unexplored and uncaptured. IPH’s main concern here was extracting and capturing the maximum potential of a place. Window seats make the most of the outstanding bush theatre, while the windows themselves are strategically placed to frame alternative fragments of the distant view. A bath within the decking is suspended at the edge of the place, yet inextricably embedded into its form. The living room and the area beneath the house are no longer at opposite ends of the spatial spectrum, they are one and the same.

The internal spaces are all organised around a central spine, with all peripheral movement radiating from this central point. A remodel of the home’s pre-existing under-developed backbone, this core is now the most structured space in the plan, yet in keeping with the design’s Jekyll and Hyde character, it decreases toward the outer edges, eventually merging into coexistence with the surrounding landscape.

The Gooseberry Hill project is essentially a wholesale renovation, leaving no element of the home untouched. Prima facie, this doesn’t leave much scope for penny-pinching, especially in light of the clients’ innately human lust for newness. Existing wire balustrading was scrapped in favour of sheet glass clamped to bent galvanised poles, but such a dramatic, unimpeded view more than made up for the significant blow to the hip pocket. Beyond this decadence, however, 90 per cent of removed materials were reused in the new construction, including bricks and the Jarrah decking, which has been reincarnated as window frames, doors, and a flexible sunshade ‘necklace’. With the native environment forming such an integral part of the location, its protection was of course also a key priority for the renovation plan. IPH retained as much as possible of the existing structure, using sustainable treated pine frames and Hoop Pine plywood panels for the new construction. A green approach was also taken with respect to the solar element: roof insulation was increased, walls painted white to reflect light, and tinting added to the larger glazed areas to reduce heat penetration. The environment and the built form work together to shade the home, existing trees and the re-formed upper levels providing a natural sun shelter.

By utilising rather than oppressing the potential for dualism, IPH has created unity out of conflict. Rather than making it a two-faced merger of old house and new renovation, the project’s Jekyll and Hyde factor is actually the core theme throughout the Gooseberry Hill House. In form and in concept it is both old and new, imposing and sensitive, natural and artificial. +

1 Jarrah timber decking from the original home was salvaged and recycled into the new home’s dramatic sunshade structures. 2 The recycled timber decking and sunshades give the home a rugged appearance on the outside... 3 An outdoor bathtub is at once exposed and discrete safely surrounded by sturdy timber, yet perched on the edge of the space. 4 A cantilevered upper storey creates a sheltered indoor/outdoor living space below.

PHOTOGRAPHY by Shannon McGrath