SOLID GOLD

Seeking a home their family could grow into, the owners of this Canberra property found the solution in a timeless design...

- Stephen Crafti

In this nature-filled part of Canberra, a local peacock makes occasional appearances. The custom black steel shroud at the front of the house, made by GH Steel Fabrications, provides summer shade, frames views to the street, and is a significant bracing element for the facade.

Located in Narrabundah, a postwar suburb in Canberra’s inner south, this family home is framed by pin oaks and offers distant views of a eucalypt forest. For the owners – a builder, his wife and their young child – demolishing the existing 1950s cottage and building anew offered the opportunity to capitalise on the outlook and hero building robust, tactile materials such as precast concrete, aluminium, steel and raw brick.

Given the slope of the land – a fall of about 3 metres from the leafy street – the house reads as a single-storey dwelling to passers-by. “It’s one of the few inner-city areas that offers such undulating terrain,” says architect Ben Walker. Some find such sites too troublesome to work with, but Ben and the owners saw only opportunity.

The brief was for a fairly substantial and versatile house that would evolve along with the family’s needs. A generous home office was also important, as was a large garage that could accommodate a trailer and work ute . “One of the words that kept coming up was ‘refuge’,” says Ben. “The owners work long hours, so they wanted a place that provided peace, comfort and solitude.”