A house in the mountains near Brisbane by Atelier Chen Hung is a contemporary and generous take on the picturesqueThis project was commended in the 2024 AR House awards. Read about the full shortlist hereThe Blackall Range is formed out of dormant volcanoes, articulated by deep ridges carved from millennia of cascading water. There are three small towns dotted along the ridge line of the mountain range: Maleny, Montville and Mapleton. On the eastern escarpment of Mapleton, a zincclad house sits nestled in its terrain.Reaping the rewards of a subtropical climate with relatively high rainfalls, the Blackall Range was historically used for growing various crops, especially bananas and pineapples. Neighbours and longterm residents have affectionately likened the house by Atelier Chen Hung to the gabled, Zincalumeclad banana packing sheds that once populated the region. The house proposes a new architectural picturesque: a resistance to symmetry; a strong connection between the building and the natural landscape; and an architectural form reminiscent of another time.The traditional custodians of the unceded lands that the house now occupies, the Gubbi Gubbi people, maintain important connections to this ancient landscape. The two mountains that feature in the view from the house are Mount Ninderry and Mount Coolum. The Gubbi Gubbi people tell a story of a feud between Ninderry and Coolum over a woman named Maroochy; Ninderry knocked off Coolums head and was turned into stone as punishment. A grieving Maroochy fled to the Blackall Range and her tears flooded down, creating the Maroochy River. Designing the house was not merely about capturing a view but, as architect Melody Chen describes, orienting the house around lines of refuge and prospecting.An obvious form for a house on this site would have been an elevated volume with the longest edge of the building facing towards the view. The architects have challenged this response and shaped the house to engage with the site in every possible way. The act of rotating the form, so that the longest side of the building faces north (as is desirable in Australia) achieves many things in one stroke of brilliance. A short side facing east maintains views from the internal living spaces as well as the outdoor areas around the house the entry garden, the external courtyard and deck between the garage and the house.This move also means that the view of the landscape is not blocked from the street, allowing pedestrians to catch a glimpse of the scenery beyond, framed in the opening between the house and the garage. The house is also skewed away from a public stairway running down one of its sides, generating a view cone for pedestrians to enjoy as they descend the steep site. As architect James Hung points out, there are no fences that bound the site; it is a house that seeks to engage with its context and democratises access to the view. There is a generosity in this gesture, supported and promoted by the client, to maintain public access to the view of the coastline, Mount Ninderry and Mount Coolum.Sinking the house into the site is a response to several conditions. It provides acoustic retreat from the busy main road, while also navigating the terrain to support the clients desire for an accessible dwelling a second storey with steep stairs would have betrayed this requirement. In early conversations between architect and client, they collectively identified Step House (2001) by Tezuka Architects as a key reference. Both Step House and Mapleton House enjoy views from each internal space over the Pacific Ocean, albeit in very different contexts. While Step House plays with a parallelogram volume cascading across the site, Mapleton House folds out like tented bellows towards the view through a trapezoidal prism. Descending from the entrance, past the kitchen into the living room and out to the deck, the view is revealed dynamically as the space expands both vertically and horizontally.The house offers various places for comfort and patterns for inhabitation. The timber deck organises the site, negotiating the connection between inside and out, framing the view and acting as the central node for navigating the house. It is partially sheltered from the easterly winds by the skewed form of the house, increasing the surface area of the building that faces over the escarpment and distributing the wind forces, acting as a windbreak.The covered outdoor space situated at the heart of the plan opens to the deck to the north to allow in daylight. In the cooler seasons, this outdoor room allows for passive solar heat gain deep into the interior. In summer, it can be enclosed by meshed sliding screens that promote natural ventilation and evaporative cooling, while providing privacy and security. An outdoor room like this is often used in hot and humid climates and can be traced to southeastern states of the US, where it is known as a dogtrot; it is known colloquially in Australia as a possum trot. Atelier Chen Hung have experimented with outdoor rooms like this in previous houses, including their first the Keperra House in 2012.Spaces are demarcated by stepped platforms and separated by centrally organised service spaces for storage and ablutions, which organise the plan along an axis that separates more public spaces to the north from private spaces along the southern side of the house. For now, the plan facilitates one bedroom and an office space; future uses could see the office used as a second bedroom, which even has its own entry. The plan accommodates several circulation paths and points of entry, creating varied opportunities for occupation. Hung suggests that it could even be a regional art gallery one day.Town planning requirements included restrictions on the roof form, favouring hipped or gabled roofs. The pitch of the roof is perpendicular to the long edge of the building, which does two things: it elevates the highest point of the roof over the central outdoor room; and it provides expression to the southern facade, which faces the public stairway and has fewer openings for privacy reasons. Planning restrictions also placed limitations on colour Hung describes the options as grey, grey or grey. The decision to use zinc cladding, rather than locally popular Zincalume, complied with this requirement but also contributes to reducing the carbon footprint of the house because zinc has a longer material lifespan and requires a less intense process for recycling and reuse than alloy metals.The cladding system applied to Mapleton House involves a simple clipping mechanism, meaning that panels can be replaced and repaired as needed. There are no excess cappings or flashings that may require replacement over time. The mellow grey of the cladding also responds to its context, blending in like a watercolour wash to the view beyond, where the ocean meets the sky. There is a careful approach to material selection inside the house too; internal walls are lined in boards of silver ash timber, sourced from farnorth Queensland, which meet ply sheets at a datum line set out from door and window openings. The woods colour complements the sandstone steps that connect the levels.Mapleton House is a lesson in how to take away to give back, preserving views that can be enjoyed by many. The house rests lightly in its site, in terms of both environmental and social impact, carefully curating a view instead of boastfully monopolising it. The efficient plan, its connection to an ancient landscape, formal and material hints to an agricultural past, and its openness to varied forms of inhabitation, all contribute to a new and sitespecific reading of the picturesque.2024-12-16Reuben J BrownShare AR December 2024/January 2025Good rooms + AR HouseBuy Now