Cumulus House

Located on a steeply sloping block high above the Great Ocean Road. The house is both intensely private and outward-looking.

Screened from the street by a minimalist façade, its unique northern orientation takes full advantage of the 180-degree views towards Bass Strait and the Separation Creek valley below. Built as a weekend home for a young professional couple and their two children the house is paradigmatic Californian modernism, taking cues from the seminal post-war design era fused with the quintessential Australian fibro beach house typology.

Organised across a single level and expressed in a singular form, the home projects outwards into the tree canopy supported on slender columns maximizing views of the landscape and allowing for greater solar access. The floor plan is set within the strict geometry of the golden rectangle. Internal circulation is via a generous 2-meter-wide corridor with bedrooms to either side accessed by full height sliding doors and when open allows for views diagonally through the living spaces to the ocean and valley beyond.

Ensuring all habitable rooms are connected to the landscape private balconies off the two main bedrooms provide retreat from the rest of the house while the deep reveals breakup the building’s form and provide protection from the sun. On plan a circle drawn within the rectangle determined the depth and width of these private balconies.

Key axes are drawn through the kitchen island and fireplace the proverbial heart and activity center of the home. Positioned on the house’s central axis at the end of the corridor the 4-sided fireplace acts as an anchor to the house. Glass sliding doors the full width of the building open to the main balcony maximizing indoor-outdoor living while providing an expansive, level, and sun-drenched space for the occupants to enjoy year-round.

Images courtesy of Willem-Dirk du Toit