HABITUS LIVING “One Cannot Exist Without The Other”

Featuring Currawong House

Words by Kirsty Sier // Photography by Andy MacPherson

Davis Architects embraces three distinct architectural touchpoints to create a Northern Rivers sanctuary, where internal and external elements are entirely dependent on one another.

Presented with an undeveloped acre of land in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, and the task of creating a clean modern family home from it, Davis Architects was faced with a true blank canvas.

Henry and Olive’s brief to principal architect Ed Davis called for a simple, single-level home that “hugged” the surrounding landscape, while maintaining privacy from the street. The result, Currawong House, is a bright, modern, nature-infused sanctuary that is defined by clean lines and touches of warmth that give the home a sense of intimacy, despite the generous proportions of the property.

Landscape is a huge component in the success of most Davis Architects projects, and Currawong House is no exception. Designed in collaboration with Effie Cooke, the founder of Cooke Landscape Architecture, Currawong House runs with the idea of a series of garden walls that wrap and extend into the garden to create a series of “outdoor rooms”.

Paradoxically but ingeniously, these “rooms” both cohere the design elements while enabling a smooth flow between the different characters of different spaces.

“We seem to be seeking ways to connect and allow the house to intertwine with the landscape,” says Davis. “By allowing elements of the building to extend and overlap into the garden, the boundary between house and site becomes blurred and interwoven. One cannot exist without the other. This is something that interests us as a practice.”

For the full article click here.

Project credits:

Architecture: Davis Architects // Builder: Morada Build // Interiors: Olive Cooke // Landscape Design: Effie Cooke / Cooke Landscape Architecture