From the ashes

Architect: Steffen Welsch Architects The project, a weekender for a Melbourne based family of 3, encompasses re-building and re-inhabitation post the 2009 Black Saturday mega fires, which decimated Marysville. It is a 60 sqm double height (with sleeping mezzanine) ‘container’ with 62 sqm deck on 5588sqm of land. The site, a steeply sloping site, backs onto the nearby state forest and overlooks the town. The building is sited on the existing terrace where the previous house stood though re-oriented. The original brief asked for a larger much more conventional replacement ‘house’. Across a period of 12 months immediately post the bushfires the perceived need to replace like with like gave way to the notion of something more emblematic of the bush retreat. The project was an opportunity to think through some of the implications of wanting to live in bush fire prone natural landscapes. Especially interesting was the notion of the bush shack as informed by urban sensibilities – how to live in relative though stripped back comfort without importing all the flim flam of urban life and so obscuring and diminishing the point of being there in the first place.

Story by: Trends