The Federal House provides a vessel through which to enable habitation and the ongoing experience of a particular place and time. Within the folding hills of its hinterland site, the home acts as both experiential container for this place and as a conditioning object, consciously aware of its outsider status within the traditional ownership and legacy of this landscape.
The project establishes a relationship between “site and modifier”, between place and object, and is envisaged to enable multiple readings, from beyond and from within. A reverberation of the settler colonial homestead typology, the home carries verandah DNA into a tightly controlled envelope allowing modestly scaled living and bedrooms spaces to expand into a covered outdoor living space.
Grounding the project is a subterranean pool linked to a garden void at the heart of the home, and to a northern aperture framing the view to the valleys and hinterland horizon beyond. Text description by the architects.
