www.architectural-review.com
Scale Architectures cost-efficient house showcases a possibility to regenerate the coastal built environment razed by bushfireThis project was shortlisted in the 2024 AR House awards. Read about the full shortlist hereClick to download drawingsIn 2020, the seaside bushland of Rosedale in New South Wales, Australia, was destroyed by the Black Summer bushfires. The fire brought drastic changes to the local built context: while the bushland recovered with utmost resilience, oversized houses and insensitive developments sprawled in the name of regeneration. The Rosedale House, designed by the Sydney-based studio Scale Architecture under multiple constraints, is one of the foremost responses to the sensitive repair and regeneration of the post-disaster area.The house is a single compact pavilion, designed pragmatically around the clients brief to rebuild their two-bedroom one-bathroom summer home lost to the bushfire, under the restrictive insurance payout of AU$430,000 (220,000). To avoid uprooting trees, Scale Architecture located the house away from the dense bushland area on the site and identified that the buildings footprint should cover a maximum area of 100m2. To minimise its disruption to the natural context and to address the significant level difference across the site, the house is placed on a galvanised steel frame, perched on a slope.The house sinks into its topographyCredit:Tim ClarkFrom the street, the house appears to be sunken, ensuring a level of privacy. To the south-west, a sun deck is open to the surrounding landscape of spotted gums, endemic to the eastern coasts of Australia. Under a hipped roof, gently pitched and truncated by a skylight at its apex, an open continuous living area is laid out from the entrance near the street to the decks to the rear. More private spaces the two bedrooms and a bathroom sit either side of the open living area.For Scale Architecture, the primary aim was to ensure the project was feasible within the budget restraints, in a remote location (roughly four hours drive from Sydney) with a limited local workforce the population of Rosedale is just 225. Finding that the traditional construction model was out of reach financially after the first tender, the architects took on an expanded role in the construction process, devising a method that minimised any unnecessary work on-site by using prefabricated structural elements and streamlining the process by purchasing most of these parts on behalf of the client (albeit a great financial risk for the small studio).Another result of the restricted budget is the simple material palette. The exterior is clad entirely in red corrugated iron; a red tin shack as described by the architects, the house is a reference to the beachside tin shacks that dot the coastal landscape of Rosedale. The timber flooring is sourced from a recently demolished Scout Hall in Casula, a suburb of Sydney; covering the floor of both the indoor and outdoor living areas, the timber makes a connection with the natural materials in its immediate setting.Scale Architectures Rosedale House is a humble and calm intervention in the bushland; its red monochromatic presence brings a breeze of hope and optimism to its fragile post-disaster context. It is a house of resilience and an exercise in restraint in the architects words, showcasing care and sensibility for its community and natural surroundings.The architects describe the house as an exercise in restraintCredit:Tim Clark