Nick and I strongly both believe that there is a future in Australian design
and construction with homes built around the premise that less is more
if the design is approached correctly there shouldn't be any compromise when
you shrink the floor area we need to shrink our floor space and increase the quality of
our buildings if we're to have any chance of having a better built landscape in the future
the brief for this project started when myself a frustrated builder approached Nick Lane a emerging
designer and we wanted to shatter the idea that a small space couldn't be a generous space
the building currently resides in Illawa a patch of farmland in South-West Victoria
and looks over The Cutting which is a beautiful stretch of coastline where
the sea cuts through the sand dunes into an inlet
you approach this building along some basalt pavers leading up to the staircase
which is a combination of old cow trough supports reclaimed hardwood
and some perforated mesh that we salvaged from an old farm shed on this very property
as you enter through a pivot door you enter into the kitchen area
the band stone cobbles really pairs back the space especially as we're sitting upon
an old lava flow it really ties this building to the landscape very well
to the southwestern end of the lounge room we have a fully double glazed steel window
section with operable awnings to get cross flow ventilation throughout the whole building
as you lead up to the mezzanine space it's set into the floor you have a study nook
and it kind of blurs the connection between the upstairs and downstairs spaces
One of the challenges in designing small transportable buildings is you have to fit
within dimensions that can travel under the VIC Road Licensing Laws you can collapse the
roof down by about 1500 millimetres the building then travels to location and we use a mechanical
screw system to crank the roof up operated by the very same wheel that operates the staircase
whenever I have an opportunity to find a beautiful old piece of rust of metal timber or whatever it
might be and turn it into something that people appreciate that's probably the most joy I get out
of the building process because it starts to shift people's attitude towards what has value and what
doesn't every piece of furniture in this building was built out of reclaimed hardwood the floor in
the living area is recycled ironbark I got from a friend of mine in Melbourne and many of the other
timber elements have been salvaged from multiple jobs that I've worked on through the years
textural materiality of what you put especially in a small space can set the standard on how you feel
the feeling people get when they enter this house is a sense of breathing out
the Aussie shed has a significant place in the Australian-built landscape and we want
to champion that old deal by creating modest buildings that reveal themselves as your
approach but from a distance look like just another farm shed sitting on the landscape