Shack in the Rocks
SHACK IN THE ROCKS
Sean Godsell Architects
CONCRETE CONTRACTOR
Surf to City Concreting
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
OPS Engineers
LOCATION
Australia
AREA
102 m²
INTERIOR ARCHITECTS
Sean Godsell Architects
BUILDING SURVEYOR
Nelson McDermott
STEEL CONTRACTOR
Architectural Steel
PRINCIPAL IN CHARGE
Sean Godsell
YEAR
2021
CLIENTS
Earl Carter, Wanda Tucker
LANDSCAPE
Brent Kahle
FURNITURE AND JOINERY
Fred Ganim
GENERAL CONTRACTOR
R+B Kahle
The site is in country Victoria approximately one hour’s drive west of Melbourne. A previous scheme for this site was shelved due to cost.
In reappraising the problem we suggested to our client that they might consider a simple farm shed to provide rudimentary accommodation on a different part of the site from the previous scheme.
They had already erected a large machinery shed with solar panels and rainwater collection tanks uphill from where we agreed a very simple adaptation of a hayshed might occur.
In the end we adapted a hayshed structure and modified it by including a translucent roofing material for light and adapting some industrial walkway grating to make a louvre for shade.
Two translucent 'sheds' are positioned to the east end of a monolithic concrete plinth - one shed for cooking and eating and the other for sleeping and ablutions.
Two houses by Riken Yamamoto and Field Shop - Yamakawa Cottage (1976) and the Ishii house (1977) - disassemble conventional residential programmes and then reassemble them in a highly creative way. I remember being intrigued by these projects as a young architect.
In the case of the Yamakawa Cottage the functional programme is distributed in an ordered and logical way across a single level timber platform.
This highly poetic scattering of spaces is controlled by a large shallow gable roof which shelters not only the rooms but the outdoor or 'other' space in the building.
This 'other' space is intriguing to me and I certainly had the Yamakawa Cottage in mind when I designed this shack in the rocks.
